You And Me
I can only imagine What our life could be If I had made the right choices For you and me. Free from drugs And my troubled past An alcoholic childhood From which I was caste. A horrific experience Of child abuse, That I tried to escape Through drug use. I made all the wrong turns, Made all the wrong decisions Which set out life Into a destructive collision. Yes, I can only imagine What our life could be If I would have made The right choices For you and me. It’s through this poem I do apprise That from deep in my heart I apologize Apologize for my mistakes And all my misgivings, And all my destructive, My destructive living.
Written July 25, 2011 By Ronald W. Clark, Jr. The Death Row Poet
Steely Silence
Way down here
In the ruins of rubble
Your steely silence
Has brought my heart trouble.
For I come from
A very troubled past
Where things never
Seem to last.
People say one thing
Yet do another
And this has taught me
To trust no other.
Yet I let down
My defense
And now I hear nothing
But steely silence.
Written July 25, 2011
By Ronald W. Clark, Jr.
The Death Row Poet
Fleeting Thought
I’m a fleeting thought in the minds of few,
housed in a 9 x 7, 63-square-foot cage
here on Florida’s Death Row.
I deal daily with a never-ending
cycle of pain and loneliness that few
outside these walls even realize exists.
My pain and loneliness are not the normal
cycle of pain existing in the world
outside these concrete walls and razor-wire fences.
No, my pain and loneliness are way, way beyond
your comprehension. And it’s a pain I’d
wish on no one, not even my worst enemy.
I bear a pain and loneliness that few
will ever know as I stand at my cell bars
staring far off into the distance at
a world I once knew, but will never know
again, yes . . . a world for which I have
become a fleeting memory to few,
and a non-existing soul to those I never knew.
The Way of Christ
Is it through the eyes
of Christ you have spoken,
or through mere anger ...
The vengeful yoke?
We pray for mercy,
compassion, and forgiveness,
then turn around
and show even less.
This is not why He died –
why He paid the price!
This is not the Christian way,
the way of Christ!
For John 3:16
was just the beginning.
In the following verses
He warns about sinning,
about fleeing the light
and living in darkness.
He tells you this is not
the Christian plight.
Verses John 3:17 through 21
are those we have come to shun,
yet we call ourselves Christians –
“Followers of Christ,”
though we wallow in mire,
wear a yoke of our device.
He warned us of it all ...
It’s there for you to see.
For he preached mercy, compassion
and forgiveness for you and me.
Fallible Men
Malicious and vindictive,
a bad attitude,
we need to be more compassionate
and a lot less crude.
We are here but a blink,
but a blink of an eye,
till we meet our mighty maker
way up in the sky.
We are way too harsh,
judgmental to a fault,
and all this vindictive hate
should be brought to a halt.
We should practice,
what we preach:
compassion, love and mercy
is what we must show and teach.
Knowing we’re not perfect,
We’re all fallible men,
we can live our lives
in this imperfect land.
The Death Penalty
By Ronald W. Clark Jr.
A rich man will walk
And a poor man will die
And America will scream
An eye for an eye
But only a poor mother will cry
For a rich woman’s son will never die
Daunting Existence
By Ronald W. Clark Jr.
I strain to look out, so far away
Through the crack in the window
At the dawn of the day.
To catch a glimpse of freedom
far off in the distance
escaping this cage
and my daunting existence.
I can see freedom,
but only in my past
so please tell me why
am I trying to last?
Existing in this world
that has diminished all hope,
so please tell me how
I’m supposed to cope?
For I stand at my cell’s bars
staring off in the distance
yet I still have to cope
