In life we are faced the option of standing for what is just or not, how we go about it also puts us in dilemma.
The average human often have the thought to change the world when faced with glaring and daring situations but what happens when the world changes you?

In this piece, I intend to tell a story using poems and its different forms while exploring the theme/topic to reflect the actual cause.
I was encouraged to write this by firestar and IfyChuky after when I wrote one piece and they demanded for another.

So here I go again. The earlier thread was lost in the Nairaland tsunami but thanks to my Seun, Princesa, etalker, TemitopeDaniel, prettyspicey and other good friends for helping me get it back and sticking with me. Thanks a million.

The Convict (Choka)

Life behind these bars
My recidivistic chained lounge;
I bonded with loneliness
At will - my frial wrist
Scarred by the bangle of guilt -
Chaste from birth but now guilty

"Death by the rope" - is
My price for dis-innocence
I embraced it well like wraith
Of though fear might flee
Justice will kill me tonight
And I'll whiff peace through my death

Bang!!! Off goes the bong
The call for my head I think;
Broody pangs aches me aloud
As the crowd barracks,
Sully smile stained their faces...
Spits, sticks, sands and stones were thrown

Inside the foyer -
My doers came with blindfolds -
Glow of darkness beholds me,
Farewell my best friends;
Crickets, flies and mosquitoes
I'd hear chirps and buzz no more

I'd be dead real soon
But no one knows my reason
For crime - no one ever cares!
Now, freedom will walk
To criminal's tomb for peace
Just for my son's sake

Defending my blood
was all I did - just a blow
On the chest and death took him...
For this single sake
I'll die so that I can live
The gallow awaits my scrag

First piece emotional and good.

TemitopeDaniel and prettyspicey were of help too.

Keep it coming

The Convict (Part II) [Quatrain]

The prepared necklace of doom, damnation and death
Hung around me; ready to swing me quivering to a painful sleep -
With a priest beside me, my sins were as it were from birth;
Few transgressions I admitted but just one I've decided to keep

The priest's holy water made my soul to steep - but was mild
As he moves aside and signaled for my condemnation
My heart ponders to my dream of playing with my grandchild
Telling tales of my ancestor's taboos, trials and tribulations...

Alas i was unmasked and my assassins took off my trinket of crime
And was garbed in the reality of that which i once dreaded - fear.
It was a sign that the light had lost its sparkling flare this time
I wondered, as the stench scent of death oozes near

A chair was there under my feet, and beneath, a hole below
Me, I fixed my sullen gaze on my happy killer as he positioned
Himself; his face, the last I'd see as today ends my tomorrow
Its a pity his crime was the one i failed to mention

The Convict (Part II) [Free verse]

Many months ago, a man from Middleton moved to,
A province of vices and soured delinquencies
Where dreams remain dreams
And reality seems unnatural
Like angels and demons in a guileful romance

Few months ago, a young enforcer was stationed
At the city of madness where reason has no reason
To be a reason, the city stood on a wild-wind bedlam!
Moans, groans and squeals were bedtime songs
That cradles everyone to sleep

The man from Middleton, my dad, a conformist preacher
A norm embedding parson passing creeds
From his forefathers to me, the enforcer, his seed -
He is the pioneer of my creation
An astute fellow to the bone
I live his air and breath his life
Just like him, I'm never pliant
Wrong is wrong and right is right
'No matter whose ox is gored'
That I've learnt, I've mastered and revered
*********************

One daring day, amid vast numbers of outlaws
A dare-devil hooped into the enforcer's bay
His face was masked with effronteries of crime
And calmly, he strolled to a safe like he owns it -
An enforcer skirmishes him halfway to the safe-room
But was overpowered and subdued with a deadly choke
And within the barriers of life and death
The man from Middleton who seeks the well being
Of his son; the son staring and clinging to deaths' strings
He man took a baseball bat and hit his head
And when the outlaw charged,
He hit him with a blow on the chest
And the outlaws' soul flee the earth
But he did something extraordinary'
He repeatedly clubbed his remains to mutilation

"Father, you just killed a man"
****************

I've sworn to you to solemnly uphold
Your sacred transferals in me as my ethical fealty
In which laws aren't dared but held in esteem,
My call to the Force was like that of a messiah
You knew that just like I too - very well;
"For if there was a crime, damn all involved and
Make the call asap" these were your words -
Your norm, my belief, a practical now -
When guilt smolders his old face
I grabbed the phone and thumbed 911...

The Convict (IV) [Ballad]

Didactic old man
Fiddling with fright
As tears curled down
From a bemoaned and fretted face
To his foaming lip.
The tears thirst bitter taste
Spiced with desired regret
Of an action already finished,
Crime begets an accidental skirmish.

~
His hands,
Those quivering hands
Protective to a fault.
The palpitation; his heart
The ‘eye of his soul’
Full of surprises and confusion,
His heart and head
Were at war with intent,
One seem to agree less
Which is it?
~
His old bat given as
A gift to his nipper
Now lays dirty as a witness
In the gore colours of crime,
Glittering red instead of white
As day time
Further dim its light
It would be called that such
Was the gift, no, tool of death.

~
A van with siren screeched to a still
From a distance that only time covers.
Few men clad in black disembarks
With live weapon of coercion,
Their face sternly professional,
The cacophony from the siren
Mocks the victim -
The dead one, the twiddling one
And the old man – which ever it chooses
A new home seems near.

~
Cuffed with cheap silver bracelet
And dragged out from the house
To the crying van,
He took a wild look aback
His blood has turned his heart to a scar,
The one that will forever illuminate
Him, it will shine exclusively
In this midst of his darkness
Where love loves hate;
What a betrayal of doctrine!

~
They led him inside the van
After few steps on heavy feet,
He was whisked off the city -
His heart too was heavy
Heavy with thoughtless thought
Enmeshed in what he dreaded
And what he has always fought.
He put his old head out of the window
And breathe his last fresh air
While the wind stranded his gray hairs.

~
Hours followed closely in minutes
Like eternity;
Till time raptured
At a very big iron gate,
Where no one ever forgets its date
Of arrival – departure is the uncle of death
It comes when one less expects
Days,
Months, and
Years if lucky.

timpaker: In life we are faced the option of standing for what is just or not, how we go about it also puts us in dilemma.
The average human often have the thought to change the world when faced with glaring and daring situations but what happens when the world changes you?

In this piece, I intend to tell a story using poems and its different forms while exploring the theme/topic to reflect the actual cause.
I was encouraged to write this by firestar and IfyChuky after when I wrote one piece and they demanded for another.

So here I go again. The earlier thread was lost in the Nairaland tsunami but thanks to my Seun, Princesa, etalker, TemitopeDaniel, prettyspicey and other good friends for helping me get it back and sticking with me. Thanks a million.

Hi Tim.., neva believed a guy kud make anoda blush, bt heaven knows my cheeks have gone pale evn as i ryt... Lot'sa thanks bro...

I've truli bn away 4rm here, 4 a yl now... Had only came checkinq, juxt to recieve a blush pill i neva bargained for..., #lol... Missed u, n evwi oda.., evn my Dearest Princesa, Mhizzthang, xynerise, Promoe n oda's... Prays I come around more even, kox I'm missinq virtually every1 i eva niu here..

The Convict ( V) (Rhyme)

Intrusion on silence's speech
Ushered in by a black van's screech.
A wigged man in his spectacle
Sits in tentacles of fates and miracles

And bystanders troops in and out
Some either chants, sings or shouts.
An old man braced himself at the dock
Vehemently clinging to the tinge of luck

Gallery of evidence and exhibit were displayed
At the gleeful eyes of the persecutors and the dismayed
The judge have seen and heard it all
To give his sentence and leave the hall

"Death by the rope" he declared with the gavel
On a sound block just before it clocked eleven
Though, he knew his judgement has no laxity
To determine his professional sanity

The Convict ( VI) (Cinqku)

Guilty?
The judge lied.
The whole world is
Guilty of my guilt now;
One down

My son
Could not speak
Because he knows
That my innocence rays
Like sun

This place
Holds nothing
Like my city -
Like sinners paradise
I'm in

The bars,
Walls and fence
Doesn't make the jail
The feeling that you're there
Makes it

Prison,
Survival
Ain't for the weak
To live you'd have to seek
It here

These years
Diaries,
Newfangled thought...
My life seems distorted
And gone.

Waiting
For my last
Days as tenant
Of the damned and silenced
To come...

The Convict ( VII)

As I make myself acquainted to my new home
And cogitate about my innocent nightmare yell,
The one I had on my first night, I found myself a tome
In exchange for my new clothes and meal from a cell
Nearby, to inscribe the dumbfounding voice of my soul
As the diary of a prisoner sets to unfolds its event and reveries
Of an innocuous pater whose heart isn't as dark as coal.
I'll try and recall daily those hunting memories
Of having to cogently carve ethical creeds and credos on his
Heart, that saving lives through blades of silvers and metals
Isn't as noble as saving lives through justice.
I never knew that that decision would be this lethal.

My intestines protested with rumbling roar
As hunger bursts my bubble of thought as it soars.

The Convict ( VIII) (Monorhyme)

Here are my diaries
The event in memories
And my life summaries
All in a dairy of stories

I will survive and live
I will believe
Fear or grieve;
Paper and pen, my relieves

Those whose ears fell
To the deafness of my yell
To make my life a hell
Just because I live in a cell

Will those days come again?
When my heart bores no pain
And my mind remains sane
Will my eyes cease to rain

Here, hunger is my friend
Impatient worms couldn’t fend
Nor could they pretend
They’re all about their ends

In the death row
Life is slow
Hope is low
Heck! Who doesn’t know?

My pen, my tool
My thoughts glued in inked-pool
Like a baby I am set to drool
To anyone who think me a fool

Do I have to brood
About who here is good
Or get misunderstood
Like people from my hood?

In an attempt to escape
Will the thought be a jape
To the inmates who’d laugh and gape
At an old man’s plan of escape?

I have missed the sun
And the laughter of my grandson
The game of wise pun
And the old age fun

Every day is the same
I breathe the blame
Every day is the same
Who is to blame?

Brawls and fights
In darken lights
Inmates test might
Winner rules the night

Survival is a skill
It is get killed or kill
Breathing is a thrill
It’s at one’s own will

People hate
People date
People mate
Inmate and inmate

I am just a heap
Waiting for the final sleep
A coma so deep
Will fate take the leap?

The Convict - Dairy of a prisoner (Sijo)

Crimes of criminals crescents the crowded cells
And lawlessness filters through the welded bars
Whoever is here is going to die anyway

Yesterday, shoes and combs were fashion
Today, laces and combs became an armour
Tomorrow, I'm sticking with my shaving stick
Survival...

The Convict - Dairy of a prisoner (Free Verse)

Yesterday, I had a dream
I was looking for my soul
I searched my palm,
My heart...
It wasn't there
I traveled beyond the cloud
The Man above didn't have neither
Am I loitering in damnation?

. . . Then . . .

I was scared to be awake,
Because dream and reality
Confuses me.. but...

I heard a sound
A buzzing one
It was threatening
Like the rapturous one
I had been told at prison chapel
But when I smelt blood
And a sting of virus...
...Malaria...

The Convict - Dairy of a prisoner (Mixed Rhyme)

If life was difficult for a reason
Then I should live in a season
Built by me alone
Shielded from outsiders
Termed "NO FRIEND ZONE"
But families are insiders
And I have one
I have a son
But he betrayed me
And I'm bittered as I could be
So I get it
Life is difficult for a reason

The Convict - Dairy of a prisoner (Acrostic)

I don't know why I
Still query my
Love for
You...
My
Child quit the protocols
Please, save me some tears
Come around...
And...
Visit your father,
Me, I hope to hear from you
Soon...

The Convict - Dairy of a Prisoner (Free verse)

Crying Sky
Beat me
Let the world know a man-god also cries

Bleaching Sky
Cleanse me
Make me glitter under your eyes

Traveling sky
Take me
To my home after my sighs

Burning sky
Lighten me
In the bottle of urn where I'd lie

Colourful sky
Paint me
The memories of me when I die



Inspired by April Showers (PS)

The Convict - Dairy of a Prisoner (Nonet)

I have written countless letters home.
None were replied by my son, why?
Did the warder feign dispatch?
Its more than a year now
That I have been jailed
No friends no kins,
None have come
To see
Me
--------
Son,
I'm old.
Forgive me
You are my pride
The tears in my joy.
Gracefully write me back
Before life is whisked off me
Your silence might kill me faster
Like choked words before my funeral

The Convict (Prose Poetry)

I have never had this remorseful thought for years,
Not when my 911 call was what sent my dad to jail.
At night I have nightmares, and day, daymares.
I am now known as the bastard of my family, thanks to you 'Mr. Right'!

Because I was taught right, the upsurged crime in my city was of great concern to me and my dad
And its unfortunate that he was caught up in its ugly web which I stood as a witness.
While my peers roam the street in nihilistic gaiety and vivacity, I dropped out of medical school
To pursue the dream of my father to be an enforcer, armed with M19 pistol, criminal bracelet and a silver badge.

That carries the honour of both our names and the city - each time i sighted a cadavar, my hatred flames
Because that could be me! When I see the paramedics or a doctor, my heart flames, because that could be me; and
When I see a victim of gunshots wounds, I panic too because that could also be me!
My hatred isn't psychological but pater influenced cynicism laced with my city's pessimism. My actions are instinctively precipitous.

Every day I grew into a fanatical conformist, I mate with the law, literally. I hated my dad but loved his didactic views
I made the city's law sacred. Everyone dreaded me like cancer. I became the rebellious patriot when justice peekaboo's with elites.
But I worry for my life. Who wouldn't? When you're loved by the few amongst the multitude then your life should be your concern.
So when I spot a potential criminal I hunt and put them behind bars before they go jaunting for crime.

I seized every opportunity to chose to do right and protect the city and if my father was involved
I wouldn't protect him either. He taught me the opposite of 'blood is thicker than water', He said "Water is thicker than blood, because human's can't survive without water but blood is pure inbreed - it gets formed not for survival".
To blood humans were, but without water we'd never be, we would have gone extinct. Fact is protect the source!

I received his letters from prison. It made me strong. He knew I acted well
Above all, our bond may have rekindled but another letter from the authorities nominated me to execute my dad.
Another reason for the world to love to hate me more.

I did not want to do it. I cried to the authorities but my tears were denied- it formed a gutter
At that moment, I felt a tinge of love and pity for him, that which was buried with hatred for toeing me to an enforcer cause
Rather than the surgeon I had wanted to become. I cursed myself and the city. I felt the way my dad had felt the day
He murdered someone. Good intentions are visited with regretful repercussions. That I understood now.

As the execution day draws nearer, I wanted not him or I to be blamed for anything. I owe my breathe to his deeds that faithful day, with this, I've made my decisions. I have realized the paradox of life. To love is to learn how to hate. I will sign the execution papers.
I will be there with my gun...

The Convict (Dramatic Monologue)

Its the execution day!
The sky shows it sympathetic mood
Like it was about to cry
Just the same way I'm about to rain

I am fighting with my conscience
For where my loyalty truly lies
"Its him. Family!"
"No. Its the cause gaddamit!
My troubled mind rants on...

"Where is the executioner?"
I heard them say.
It broke my bubble of trance
I marched towards the priest
And took a shameful look.

My father flashes before me
Oh dad! I silently exclaimed.
The crazy crowd chortled.
The priest made a cross sign.
I knew the time has come...

I thought of his afterlife...
I saw his gaze of regret
His eyes pierced mine
Like a sinner would at his tempter
That look... That look...
Isn't a look that means well

Such immensity in his eyes
Knows that
Death is a painful peace
Not taken prepared...
That gaze again caught me

"He can't die like this
Not with these photographic eyes
Staring and agitating for his death.
Was Jesus hated these much
To be crucified, why him?"
My heart sorrowfully spoke!

When I walked straight up, I thought;
Why would the authority want me
To take the life of he who gave me one?
Why me? He is my dad...
My thought further puzzles.

If taken him down the gallows
Is what loyalty means
Then
Loyalty just begets a wondering Judas -
An enemy has been identified.

What to be done needs to be done
I signaled the warder,
He affirmed and kicked the chair
And death choked the old man.
He battled like a headless chicken

The crowd cheered death over live
The sight made me quiver,
I couldn't bear it anymore
I closed my eyes,
My shivering fingers located my gun

I held my firearm and aimed
At the rope between life and death
It caught life
It fell on a station stallion
That 'bolted' immediately into the woods

I laid down my arms
With my hands up high...
"Dad, death has been delayed"
I was whisked off.

The Convict (Prose Poetry)

The queer morning sun
Locked its golden face
In coyest cloud
A fact that the day would be lazy
And hazy
The c0cks yawns as it crows
Horses snorts husky neighs
Standing sideways in its stable
On feeble hooves
The night seem to have overstayed its time
And had encroached into the day
Amid these, a young man dangles away
Clinching fear in its broken wings
While another glowered
Balefully.

*****
In resupination, my legs hung the air
Under a bruised face
The ground smells like my piss
And faeces
I couldn't feel my hands
Nor could my nose sift air off its stench smell.
Apart from the tornado of flies
Buzzing around my head
I realized that I've passed out
Few days ago
In a manger...
Where my torturer tortured me
For answers unanswered...
"Where is he?"
My eyes flinched.

My tormentor, a very huge man,
Bald on both head and face,
With a watermelon mouth and a nose
Like a very big capital letter W
Whose nostrils can accommodate
Two coca cola bottle.
His big hands smells like one who hacks death
With one single grip...
He smells like fear!

The tormentor smiles
At me, his prey
He wielded his accouterment
At the back of his left hand
And marched slow-motioned
Like a lion on a hunting quest
He turned to my legs
And opened it wide
Like a Doctor delivering a baby
A hot iron went in between..
...I screamed....
"Where is he?"
****
A fight for survival supervened
A thousand thought trespassed
And a tinge of opportunity beamed
To me like a light of hope
In a dark tunnel
I spilled my tormentor's blood then
I took my legs and fled...
But it seems my dreams
Are infringing in my trapped realities
Thus is true...
I woke up to discover that
I've passed out again...

The Convict (Than-Bauk)

City of fear
Who would bear thee?
The dears and docked?

Thy pules, thy ruse
That spins muse off
The use of law...

They oscillate
And debate forth
From fate to faith

Till nightfall glows
No one knows thee
That shows off crime

Now without laws
Red flags maws foul
It caws justice

Pick thee a fight
Turn its plight round
It's right to wrong



A Than-Bauk is a typical epigram that make use of three line (climbing rhyme) with each line having four syllables. The rhyme is on the fourth syllable of the first line, the third syllable of the second line, and the second syllable of the third line.

The Convict ( Free Verse)

As I stare up the old colonnade,
Marveled by it spruce up accolade
Enthralling before my sight again fade
Into my nothingness

Isolation are my acquaintances when -
Ever I peep my heart for the last of my brethren
In the bloodless war of trust and betrayal, when
He cast me into my nothingness

Mystified in total submission
By the sight of a lass in my vision
In whose bed my frailty lays in admission
Her eyes perused into my nothingness

My last breath beat death to its dark time
Before it cut short an old prime
For my sentence was an aborted crime
That ushered me into my nothingness

She seem to be my son's subterfuge
So tender and loving, who wouldn't seek refuge
In her? Behold she gave me grainy febrifuge
Coddling into my nothingness

Past days were tauntingly terrific
Drifting in reminiscent repellence that's febrific,
A memory so haunting and horrific
Delving into my nothingness

I nurse myself from my heart sores
The pain piecing my perplexing pores
I see the bubble of blood which gores
Into my nothingness

Just when i knew the cause for my release
My vein was put at ease,
But the crisis in my head seek no peace
Into my nothingness

Life and its basket of hope
Always holding one with suicide rope,
Dropping choices that one can't cope
In my nothingness

Will I see my son again?
Will I again be sane?
I wish to feel the sunshine-rain
That will pore into my nothingness

The Convict (Free Verse)

In my head, a voice is singing
In songs of confusion,
There are faces of death all staring at me,
Each with a striking resemblance of my troubles -
The ones that bruised and scars me.

Suddenly, my head became a market place
With bubbles of thoughts hitting each other
There are haunting memories flashing before me
The dark days....

My head remains heavy
The neck could barely carry its troubles
My heart beat faster than a drum
My eyes lost its gaze
Another flash snaps at me and ....
Blank!!!
Then i opened my eyes...
"Who are you?"
The lady before me awed!

The Convict (Blank Verse)

He's a torturer, he's fear, he's death,
He's the tool that plows damnation.
Known as the earth scariest being thing,
Merciless, emotionless and agonizing.

He has made me his toy of torment
Mutilating my mind and body at his play.
I fear that I am dead while I'm still breathing
I know that because I am death's playing toy!

Strategising, intuiting an escape route
Out of hell's heaven, waiting on a goof,
I see it coming, its already nearer than I think,
I need one last string to pull, death to death!

So, to kill death, life must be taken,
Its visible possibility is on the edge,
When next he comes I'll pull my last string
Either way, one of us leaves here alive.

The Convict (Haiku)

Fearful memories,
Marauding sanity still -
Void is a calm thought.

Eyes lost in pale gaze
With confusion rolling in
Life's camera...dazed!

Formatted old thought -
New pulse of bubble afloat
By the spoilt brain bank.

timpaker: The Convict ( VIII) (Monorhyme)

Here are my diaries
The event in memories
And my life summaries
All in a dairy of stories

I will survive and live
I will believe
Fear or grieve;
Paper and pen, my relieves

Those whose ears fell
To the deafness of my yell
To make my life a hell
Just because I live in a cell

Will those days come again?
When my heart bores no pain
And my mind remains sane
Will my eyes cease to rain

Here, hunger is my friend
Impatient worms couldn’t fend
Nor could they pretend
They’re all about their ends

In the death row
Life is slow
Hope is low
Heck! Who doesn’t know?

My pen, my tool
My thoughts glued in inked-pool
Like a baby I am set to drool
To anyone who think me a fool

Do I have to brood
About who here is good
Or get misunderstood
Like people from my hood?

In an attempt to escape
Will the thought be a jape
To the inmates who’d laugh and gape
At an old man’s plan of escape?

I have missed the sun
And the laughter of my grandson
The game of wise pun
And the old age fun

Every day is the same
I breathe the blame
Every day is the same
Who is to blame?

Brawls and fights
In darken lights
Inmates test might
Winner rules the night

Survival is a skill
It is get killed or kill
Breathing is a thrill
It’s at one’s own will

People hate
People date
People mate
Inmate and inmate

I am just a heap
Waiting for the final sleep
A coma so deep
Will fate take the leap?

This is Awesome bro... I so much lyk d concept

I've been left behind. Well, welldone Parker. Don't stop. You need to know, I just read through like I do with stories Lol.

The Convict (Monoku)

...Pain is only when emotions stretches beyond the heart's toleration..

The Convict (Haiku) (Escape)

Before the nightfall,
The day would remember thee
Who made haste slowly.