For My Crimes

Tried by a jury of my "peers"
Convicted of my "crimes"
Sentenced to solitary confinement
For life

Moved to a maximum security facility
Logged, examined, irradiated
Sealed in my cell
No further human contact

Food, water, the necessities of life
Automatically, electronically dispensed
Day in, day out
No comment, no choice

All aspects of life controlled
Hours of daylight, hours of darkness
Daily exercise
Endless texts and videos to prepare for my assigned task

Now, days, weeks, months passing
I sense change
A viewing portal opens in my cell wall
So I may see the prison which I approach

Angry, red, dry, foreboding
Plains and mountains and craters
Wracked with dust storms
A bereft desert penitentiary

For the time thus far passed
Has been but passage
To my final destination
The place to which I have been consigned

Destined to spend my eternity
Examining, collecting, reporting
These actions required to earn my sustenance
The difference between a sentence of death, and life

And when my term comes to its inevitable conclusion
And thus my pioneering work
This cell, this capsule
Shall serve as my sepulcher

Which, in anticipation
Bears a plaque for future inmates to read:
"Here, for the first time
"Landed an inmate
"Of the Martian Penal Colony"

Standing, not as a monument to my existence
Nor as a marker of the "justice" system that placed me here
But rather as the latest outpost
Of the relentless advancement of the State

Oh, had I not committed my "crimes!"
Yet, I must have done
And still shall, to my last breath
To wit: being, thinking, valuing
The Individual

Rejecting their politics
Slogans, dogma
No longer dedicated to their propaganda
But to this world's truths

And so I live
Confined, yet free
For they cannot take that from me
Have, in fact, condemned me to the very fruits of my transgressions

For I am no longer under their rule
Not in their jail
Nor even on their destitute world
But on a New Earth
Which, by their "penalty"
They have made my own

This poem was previously published in Red Planet Magazine

Mike Turner, a songwriter and poet living on the US Gulf Coast, has had more than 250 poems published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. His poetry collection, "Visions and Memories," was published in 2021 by Sweetycat Press.

Find more by Mike Turner in the Author Index.