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About Time is the national newspaper for Australian prisons and detention facilities

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Poetry

Less

By

John

John writes from a prison in VIC.

Jonny Gios via Unsplash

The outside on the inside

Steals passion for fun

When arrows come from far and wide

Facing the new shiny sun

with dignity

There are ribbons in the fire

And lives still painfully on hold

Beneath the folds of desire

The barred windows still remain cold

indefinitely

When recognition cannot be found

Or trust and pride have no sound

Then those minds roll ‘round and round

They cannot find any common ground

respectively

So the outcasts may play together

Live trapped among the barbed wire

Unmasked souls on a sorry tether

Can never form a knowing gyre

insensitivity

For when lives are flung aside

And battle is all they know

Then worth will always hide

Awake for some endless show

expressivity

The outsider on the inside

Wears the mask of the alone

In crowds of waste and glory

They often forget about Home

eternally

The outside on the inside

Steals passion for fun

When arrows come from far and wide

Facing the new shiny sun

with dignity

There are ribbons in the fire

And lives still painfully on hold

Beneath the folds of desire

The barred windows still remain cold

indefinitely

When recognition cannot be found

Or trust and pride have no sound

Then those minds roll ‘round and round

They cannot find any common ground

respectively

So the outcasts may play together

Live trapped among the barbed wire

Unmasked souls on a sorry tether

Can never form a knowing gyre

insensitivity

For when lives are flung aside

And battle is all they know

Then worth will always hide

Awake for some endless show

expressivity

The outsider on the inside

Wears the mask of the alone

In crowds of waste and glory

They often forget about Home

eternally

This
piece
was originally printed in the
February 2026
edition of About Time.

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