A POET- PRIEST WRITES FROM PRISON, PART II

                                                   

if . . . in the greenwood. . . 

I'm in prison

I'm a "hardened con" after 8 years.

I'm a priest.

I want to stay here.

I don't want parole.

And I'm innocent.

My savings went to legal costs.

The Cardinal took away my pension.

The social security ended at conviction.

My car went to defray the cost of an expert witness.

The Church took away my livelihood.

My landlord took my apartment.

The Cardinal took away my medical benefits.

I'm anathema at the old priests' home.

The Cardinal won't tell me if I am excommunicated or not, so

I'm unwelcome at the prison Mass.

To dig, I am unable at 82 yrs. of age

As "the most hated man in Mass., one of the ten more notorious

criminals in Mass. history?" The "worst of the worst."

My life is in danger from the vigilantes.

I cannot stay with friends without making them targets.

The sex offender registry all but insures retribution from neighbors.

Is it not curious that the DA, now  the Attorney General, found

me harmless enough to go home with no prison time if I would

take a plea bargain and confess to 1456 rapes, or even to two?

Now ten years later I am surely less harmful.

Broken physically, socially, spiritually, religiously, vocationally,

my reputation destroyed, my integrity impugned, my golden years

squandered, parole would require yet another pound of flesh.

In prison I am so hated that I am kept out of sight even of

the general population -- protective custody.  Prison within a prison.

In any case it is useless to ask for parole since one is required

to admit his crime, show remorse and take the sex treatment

courses.  I have not even a smidgen of remorse for heinous acts

that never were.

Nearly deaf, hands shaking with familial tremors, a heart condition,

rosaea, limping from nerve damage from sciatica, allergies, skin cancer, 

high blood pressure, and cholesterol, I could not sleep under bridges

as do my compadres. My thyroid and my eyes have conditions which

require regular observation.

Let me die in prison, in solidarity with the countless other

innocents whose lives have been blighted or taken; the lynched,

the witches ...  while society consoles itself with two

great fallacies: "I can tell a guilty person" ... "Seldom do innocents go to 

prison."

 Modern science will disprove both.


S.P. in the Fields