Black as Hell and Toxic

The prison ships drifted in like black menacing clouds
and Harry would watch the dark men unloaded to cells
then being flown across a river that flowed both ways,
impassable by any other means, the perfect barrier.
He wondered at their lives, why they had come to this
or if anyone else even cared they would never return.

Sometimes one would react at this point of no return
panicking against invisible chains high above the clouds,
the guards always alert, also amused, expecting this
would hustle him onwards into the Outworlder cells.
A strange silence for the most part, grief a barrier
to any communication this final parting of the ways.

With time too short for getting used to prison ways
soon the thundering rocks of Gronean would return,
the pitiful building resources creating no barrier
for protection against the expected choking clouds.
Their only hope was to huddle in the stark cells
but only if they had enough brute strength for this.

If enough supplies aren't brought in for this
it is survival of the fittest, but there are ways
and means of infiltrating the top carminal cells
each based on a service or favour in return.
To escape the ever present deadly toxic clouds
those in the know have forged a fendrus barrier.

Thuggery crosses every known language barrier
any man who resisted soon came to know this
was what his future life amid those clouds
depended upon, quickly learning the new ways
or having some special skill to trade in return
for a semi-comfortable existence in the cells.

Divided into different work factions or cells
those with brawn set to repairing the barrier,
while those with brains schemed to return
some semblance of sanity to the rest of this
hellish life, endeavouring and seeking other ways
better methods to survive the nauseous clouds.

No-one would ever return nor chart this
fate of so many unlocked cells, their barrier
being only the ways of a river and toxic clouds.

Poetry Survivor
Second Round Sestina