The Prisoner's Disease

Poemata 39

This “Convict Ship” was a hoax, presented to exemplify the ‘grim old days’. No convicts were ever transported in her.

SO MUCH FILTH FESTERS where the water does not flow
Where wind doesn't pester, where the sun doesn't go;
As in such places poison spreads as it would please
Everybody faces this, The Prisoner's Disease--

Dust, dust, dust! As if a worm that does not die
In this depth of must and mold everybody is a fly;
A bee requires a flower, and a flower does not please
All these places glower with The Prisoner's Disease;

A man will do much stranger things, when he's in a camp
Such deeds of which nobody sings, at least not by the lamp;
And forget them all as quick as he found them when leaves
Away from there so thick with The Prisoner's Disease;

So many doctors peering, so many priests concerned
Addictions they are fearing, and this fear is quite well-earned
How many inmates suffer, how many are relieved
When they rub that ulcer, that old Prisoner's Disease?

Twelve steps this way, to keep you from the jar
Works well enough they say, but only works so far
Remembering the saying-- about the chimpanzees?
Only prisoners must treat The Prisoner's Disease.