Feeling Death Row

by Gerald E. Marshall

When heat is all up I feel

You’re tired of the steel

When life seems no more

And lying down is what you adore

When isolation becomes too much

Then you long for a lost touch

When those who you supposed to love you

Hate you

Or that’s how it seems

When you embrace the way a singer sings

When her lungs blow you feel blown

Away

You’ll feel love from all these things

Until they say

You die on this day!

Dreaming on Texas Death Row

by Gerald E. Marshall

I lay in my bed

Thinking and thinking

Of the people, the places and

Different periods of time

I’d rather be

Instead of journeying in my mind

To a place where I’m free.

I am,

Captivated by these captive journeys

While mourning the many people

Who should miss me

May the love I yearned from them

Rest in peace.

My Truth

By Gerald E. Marshall

Barefoot and hungry.

I came walking out of abandonment

Foster homes,

Motherless child

Following that star

The great state of Texas