Cold sheets of solitude
muffle the sounds of
iron on iron,
prison doors slamming,
caged men snarling
like animals in their
death colored cells.

For seventeen years
he's been muted and
shunned, tossed out
by the world and
shut up in a hole,
surviving on fantasy
and twilight sleep.

Time grinds by in
numbing isolation,
and he counts the days,
lives in his head,
relies on the radio
to keep his mind
alive.