Behind the Steel Door
Steven Dupere 1963 (MA)
There we, the invisible, existed transparent to a doctorate of charismatics who held PhD's to the light of a society goading us toward a most skewed sense of abnormality.
There we settled like oddity and spectacle left small and unseen like two-headed monstrosities waiting for death and castration to claim what life had vomited upon the heads of judges, juries and executioners.
Stank walls and sweaty doors echoed a reminder that we had ceased to exist as clamoring keys and locks cordoned and degraded us like lions torn from their dignity.
As still our essences urged us onward like wind against a current of white water fighting for recognition from a humanity that shit us like feces upon a dignified earth
too precious for the mere and uncommon.
Where was our parable, our hymn and our salvation as hell rained its flame down upon our still keen sense of awareness? They’d proclaimed us dullards, yet as pointed as we were as too in full comprehension of their judgment and disdain.
Why were they blind to themselves yet privy to paint us as brutes and beasts when our blood ran as readily and red as their hatred and anger? Their glares spoke tellingly of their nature, their words but an assurance of their glares.
Yet we too are none but he who fancies us underbellies to serpents and demons stripping the righteous of their sight for that they had seen in us what their hearts had failed to see in themselves.
We savored hope as our reality drew us into disparity and depression when the man conspired to dim the lights and that we, the sub-human, called loudly to be realized by demons who cast their stones in glass houses as we stood somber, sound and slumped forevermore behind the steel door.
About this poem
This was inspired by AJ Caron who had formerly worked with mentally and physically impaired children who would be dropped off for him to take care of. His poem "The Left Behind" inspired me to write a poem about an often-overlooked faction of society that is all too often underappreciated. The steel door is a metaphor indicative of a prison of sorts and how society can tend to push people who are not like them out. As a greatest reference I used a facility (asylum) in Massachusetts that, years ago, kept patients on constant lockdown where they were heavily medicated and treated like animals. more »
Written on December 29, 2023
Submitted by Symmetry60 on December 29, 2023
Modified by Symmetry60 on December 31, 2023
- 1:34 min read
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Quick analysis:
| Scheme | A X A XX X X X X |
|---|---|
| Characters | 1,724 |
| Words | 315 |
| Stanzas | 8 |
| Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
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"Behind the Steel Door" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/177027/behind-the-steel-door>.
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