Extremely angry
By Brandon Astor Jones
When I become very angry, in this tiny cell, I am often taken to an ageing childhood that too quickly ended. More often than not, I am drive to the reading of poetry. Sometimes, after a few lines read aloud, a poet's words can be like Momma's smooth hand upon my brow. She touches me at will, and I am better for it.
Today, I am reading Wystan Hugh Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" (1946), and one sentence sticks out in this moment of anger: "About suffering they were never wrong,/ The old masters".
In response to my childlike anger, I put my thoughts — which can come in prose or rhymed questions — on the paper of adult truth and reality. Then Momma's hand takes the pen and we become one hand, with many timeless questions asked, with just as many feeble answers given.
BEHOLD Where am I?
I am there, in your heart and soul What am I?
I am much pain, even when great joy unfolds Who am I?
I am you, very new yet old Why am I
I am generations of Ebony secrets, untold Indeed, I am why ... BEHOLD!
[The writer is a prisoner in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, Georgia State Prison, HCO1, E-2-36, Reidsville, GA 30453, USA. For the first time in 17 years, Brandon has the real hope of his sentence of death being mitigated. If you can help by contributing to his defence fund or in other ways, please contact Australians Against Executions, PO Box 640, Milson's Point NSW 2061. Phone (02) 9955 1731, fax 9427 9489. Cheques can be made payable to "Brandon Astor Jones Defence Fund".]