Reflections: A Life Of Lessons

By Keith Alexander McCloud

Reflections is one man’s collection of poems detailing his thoughts and the lessons learned while living his life serving a natural life sentence inside of the Texas prison system. Reflections allows its readers a detailed emotional introspect of what so many young Black men go through while paying the price of breaking the laws designed by a biased society to make them part of a free-laboring penial system. Reflections doesn’t point fingers. This powerful yet informative narrative makes one feel the fear and realization of one young Black man as he learns he is powerless to change the ultimate fate of self-destruction without the help and guidance of God in his life.

This collection of poems will allow you to become a part of the victory that this inmate attains in spite of the obstacles and tragedies encumbered, having served over twenty-five years in prison. If reading and learning of how God’s presence in people’s lives changes even the most unsurmountable odds interest you, then Reflections is your must read.

The author warns its readers to be ready to cry, laugh, learn, and be inspired. This collection of poems quickly becomes a story of overcoming, changing, believing, and loving that you as a reader will want to share with anyone you know who has a son, father, brother, or husband incarcerated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685178819

Book preview

Exposed

I have no fear of being judged.

For I have made amends

and asked forgiveness for my sins.

Exposed, I am a new man.

Forgiven, for a purpose and plan.

They can think what they will,

but this is bigger than

Texan, African, or American.

Exposed, I can

cry and not give a damn.

Exposed, I can

tell my life’s story.

Revealing all the details

while living life with no worries.

Exposed, I’ll tell you I was a victim of

peer pressure, vices,

and just being plain old lazy.

Being young and Black in the streets is crazy,

but it’s not the streets who made me.

Exposed, I confess I had choices,

and I made the wrong ones.

Them guns ain’t for fun,

them drugs ain’t for fun,

and prison ain’t been for fun.

Exposed, I tell my mother

all the time through glistening eyes

that I now understand what was at stake

and that I apologize.

Exposed, I can fall to my knees

and talk to God whenever need be.

The realization is

I have always been exposed.

For it is only He who can judge me,

and there is nothing that He can’t see.

Exposed, I have no excuses

or justifications for my misgivings.

The odds are stacked in the world we live in,

but that was no reason to just give in.

Exposed,

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

Yet accepting that if I can’t,

it’s all right.

I’m still merely a man.

Exposed.

I do not believe

that sheer suffering teaches.

If suffering alone taught,

all the world

would be wise,

since everyone suffers.

To suffering must be added

mourning, understanding,

patience, love, openness

and the willingness

to remain vulnerable.

—Joseph Addison

Me and You

Hey, you.

How many times has it been,

physically,

just me and you?

And how many times has there been

when others wouldn’t understand

the things that we’ve been through?

Not to mention

the battles we’ve fought thru?

Or the mental screen plays

or spiritual impasses we’ve gone thru?

Oftentimes,

when I look at you,

across from me.

I am reassured by your unwavering gaze

that I’ve grown to be,

the man that God would have me to be.

Yet I wonder if other folks can see

the same things that I see in you

inside of me?

Then after wonder,

there’s relief.

And the understanding

that what others think

is obsolete.

It’s God first and family second,

and you are in fact

a direct reflection

of the man that I have grown to be.

Even when we talk sometimes

and tears roll down your face.

I am secure in who I am as a man,

when I reach and wipe your tears away.

We’ve had the weight of the world

on our shoulders

and didn’t cave in.

We’ve actually witnessed each other

grow from boys to men

and found in each other

someone to believe in.

And this is from someone

who knows exactly where you came from.

Someone who understands

that every ghetto ain’t the slums

and just because a wound has healed

doesn’t mean the scar is numb.

This is from someone

who has found in you

someone to talk to

to make things clearer.

Where and who would I be

without me and you,

the man in the mirror.

Healing is a matter of time,

but it is also

a matter of opportunity.

—Hippocrates

Tomorrow

It’s hard looking

24 hours into the next day.

Especially when your yesterday

has taken over 7,000 days to happen.

And your tomorrow is really

over 4,000 days away.

And it’s even harder

waiting on a day to end.

Especially when that day

has you feeling like

that after 1,440 minutes and counting,

you’re still in the same spot,

doing the same thing.

While waiting on 82,400 seconds

to tick away again.

My only reprieve is that

even though my own tomorrow

is still over a decade away.

The fact that I am able to awake each day

with such a renewed vigor

seems to chase my despair away.

In years I ain’t seen a sunrise nor sunset,

just broken men, walls, and bland meals.

Yet I do know I’d go crazy

if I wasn’t able to believe

that time waits far no man

and that there is no ailment

that time and God couldn’t heal.

Mail call, lights out,

my