Just To See What Happens

Anaesthetised

With booze brewed

In a cell toilet.

Tattooed

With ink

Made from a melted plastic Coca Cola bottle.

Punched in with a paper clip,

By an artist inspired by hate.

Paid for with cigarettes

Or blow jobs.

His face 

And head

A miniature canvass

Of banal black blotches.

The birth marks

Of an alcoholic womb,

The scar tissue

Of prison rape.

He took his prison bars with him,

On his face and head,

And sat them opposite me

On this inner city tram,

Smelling like an all night ashtray

That a drunk has spewed in,

And hate.

I want to sit quietly

Avoid notice,

Alight when the time is right,

But part of me

Wants a ticket inspector

To set fire 

To the hate fuse,

The personal prison riot,

Bureaucracy and the beast,

Just to see what happens.

Fear kills empathy.

Parkstreet