Faoi Glas/Lock Up ➖ In Crumlin Road Prison
Faoi glas shouted,
echoes throughout the wing,
we shuffle to our cells with water and things,
time for lock up
♞♜♝
The heavy bolt is shot in place
locked up again in that lonely space
a naked bulb hangs on its twisted string
a help-bell button on the wall that pride won’t let you ring
♞♜♝
The window high upon the cell wall
casts a shadow where once light did fall
it’s broken glass removes the smell
the stench of fear and death from this cell
of the incarcerated went before me
♞♜♝
A silence descends through out the gaol
no shouts or taunts, or crying wails
no place for mediation, just toilet smells
from an over flowing enamel toilet pot
♞♜♝
The lights turned off from outside your door,
as the screws prying eye invades your space once more
through the spy hole
the darkness causes pain
♞♜♝
The clang in the circle
the glass iron door breaks the morning silence
the key shoots open your lock once more
Time to slop out he shouts inside the dark cell
♞♜♝
semi naked prisoners in a stinking hell
they shuffle to the sluice room
half awake
dreading another day faoi glas
♞♜♝
The prison officers look shiny and bright
with their gleaming cap peaks and their buttons alight
on their tunics
embossed with a symbol of the crown
oppressing the captured
♞♜♝
You pray for a letter,
a glimmering light,
news from home to set your spirit alight
you smell its paper to capture the long lost smell of their presence
♞♜♝
The court list names is shouted out from the ones
it echoes aloud along the long landings
Mr Jackson wants you to know it’s conflict day again
the Protestant police force awaits with batons and their handcuffs
to bruise your skin
the battle of Town Hall Street court starts once again
♞♜♝
Returned to ‘A' Wing bloody and sore in time for tea and lock up once more
no yard exercise, its winter time Greeted by the prisoners…how was the fight?
Did you get one? or, boy your a sorry sight
all to be repeated again next Wednesday
♞♜♝
The cell landing mesh wire stretching tight from side to side
to stop prisoners jump
suicide, but it still happens
♞♜♝
Time for dinner in the two’s canteen
food laced with glass bulbs that cannot be seen
a gift from loyalist who work in the kitchens
nowhere is safe
♞♜♝
The powerful words scratched into the cells plastered wall
the names and dates and victory calls
20 big ones
"I'll do it standing on my head”
but some can't take it, some even dead
♞♜♝
The dull grey sky reaches down to you once again,
through the wire reinforced glass sheets
like drops of rain from the roof high above you
♞♜♝
Back to your 12 foot by 7 cell
your own small space in this living hell,
to tidy it
there is nothing else to do
but read a western book that would drive the most bored insane
donated by the Quakers
♞♜♝
Off to another day dream about the outside
you sigh, you scream,
wishing out loud
there was no faoi glas shouts
any more
just freedom.
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