Hope for the wrongly convicted.
False confessions
coerced confessions
eyewitness misidentifications
forensic science errors
public defenders inexperience.
Cell doors clang shut
futures stunted
tears long since evaporated
possibilities suffocated
except
the Innocence Project has my name.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Melissa asks us to consider the song, “Folsum Prison Blues”, written and performed by Johnny Cash. The first four lines of the song are
“I hear the train a-comin’,
it’s rolling ’round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine
since I don’t know when.”
Melissa asks us to write a poem inspired by the song….and by Johnny Cash actually going to Folsum Prison and singing to the inmates.
The Innocence Project is an organization that works toward the release of prisoners who are wrongly accused and imprisoned for crimes. To date, their organization has succeeded in the release of 250 innocent prisoners. The Exonerated Five (formerly the Central Park Five) are some of the more famous individuals who benefited from their work.
Image by Daniel Vanderkin from Pixabay
lillian the home poet 
Lillian, “there’s a lot of it about” (wrongfully convicted.) I remember reading once where there are warehouses full of untested rape kits. I believe that a large percentage of those in prison don’t belong there and that there are too many walking free who need to be behind bars.
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