The Psalm of the Unemployed Ex-Con by Jeff Callaway

THE PSALM OF THE UNEMPLOYED EX-CON

by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

1. O Lord, You see the mark they burned into me.
   Felon. Criminal. Unworthy.
   A single night’s mistake,
   a young man’s college folly,
   and they forged my life sentence in ink, not iron.

2. I harmed no man.
   I carried no weapon.
   I held mushrooms in my hand—
   now doctors prescribe the same for healing minds—yet for me, it became my chain forever.

3. At twenty-five, they cut my future from me.
   They dressed it up as justice.
   But it was politics, profit, and punishment
   for being caught in what others walked away from laughing.

4. My college friends broke worse laws and got away clean.
   They sit in offices now,
   wearing ties, sipping lattes,
   calling themselves respectable.
   But I carry the scar they never see.

5. I served my time, day for day—
   no parole, no probation, no mercy.
   I fought off predators in the dark corners of prison,
   guarded my life from knives and fists,
   prayed not to die where the walls smell of bleach and blood.

6. Yet when I stepped out into the sun,
   the sentence followed me.
   Not in bars, but in background checks.
   Not in shackles, but in slammed doors.

7. They say I am free,
   yet no employer will take my hand.
   They would rather hire the lazy and unskilled
   than the man who has survived the fire
   and still shows up early, ready to work.

8. I apply, and I am ghosted.
   I interview, and I am smiled at,
   but the shadow of “felon” whispers in their ear
   until they send me away empty.

9. This is the America they built:
   where justice can be bought,
   where health is for sale,
   where the poor are kept poor by design.

10. The lawmakers have no law above themselves.
    They hand out our tax dollars to foreign kingdoms,
    to billionaires in silk suits,
    while our streets crumble and our hospitals rot.

11. They fund wars we never voted for.
    They drop bombs overseas while my neighbor’s fridge is empty.
    They send aid to every flag but our own.
    They pretend generosity, but it is bribery in disguise.

12. I have seen the lists of their waste.
    Millions to study cocaine on cats,
    billions for diversity training in Afghanistan,
    projects so absurd they mock the sweat of the man who paid for them.

13. The rich do not feel the weight of tax season.
    They hire the lawyers, the accountants, the loophole-makers.
    But the poor man’s check is plucked bare before it even reaches his hand.

14. They will not forgive my offense.
    They will not restore my rights.
    I cannot hold a weapon to defend my home,
    yet they arm the world.

15. They say crime is a choice—
    but they have built a system where reoffending is survival.
    No job, no wage, no roof—
    and then they point the finger and call us animals.

16. They want us to fail.
    Prison labor is cheap labor.
    A man in chains makes more profit
    than a man earning a living.

17. This is the design:
    break the poor,
    brand them forever,
    recycle them into the machine.

18. O Lord, I am angry.
    I know You tell us not to fear,
    not to be consumed by the worries of the world—
    but my rent does not wait for heaven,
    my hunger does not keep Sabbath.

19. I would be a monk if I could,
    I would vanish into the hills and pray until Your Son returns—
    but they have made a wilderness even of the city.

20. These are not leaders.
    They are merchants of souls,
    selling our labor, selling our freedom,
    for the price of a lobbyist’s dinner.

21. They dress in suits,
    but they are wolves.
    They speak of liberty,
    but they write shackles into law.

22. They have replaced God with gold.
    They kneel at the altar of Wall Street,
    chanting in numbers,
    sacrificing the poor for quarterly gain.

23. Their greed is bottomless.
    It eats wages, it eats pensions,
    it eats the spirit of the man who once believed in the American dream.

24. O Lord, will You let this stand?
    Will You not bring the proud to ruin?
    Will You not strip the crowns from their heads
    and return the stolen bread to the hands that baked it?

25. I have no army.
    My weapon is my prayer.
    My fortress is my faith.
    My protest is to keep breathing when they wish me silent.

26. They think the poor are voiceless—
    but I will speak.
    I will write.
    I will name them for what they are.

27. I will not pretend they are simply mistaken.
    They are deliberate.
    They know what they do,
    and they have no shame.

28. My hope is not in their mercy—
    for they have none—
    but in the justice that rolls like a river from Your throne.

29. The day will come, Lord,
    when their gold will be gravel beneath their feet,
    when their names will be spit upon,
    when the ones they crushed will rise and testify.

30. On that day, let the senators gnash their teeth.
    Let the billionaires weep.
    Let the judges who sold their verdicts choke on their robes.

31. As for me, keep me, Lord.
    Keep me from despair,
    keep me from the traps they lay,
    keep me from the sin of giving up.

32. Let me walk through this fire and not be consumed.
    Let my children see that even in chains,
    a man can be free in his soul.

33. And when You come, Lord,
    take me home.
    Let the wicked fall into the pit they dug for others,
    but let me stand in Your light, free at last.

~ by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

© 2025 Texas Outlaw Press