SocialistStories حكايات اشتراكية

A Red Flag of Hope
by Maina wa Kinyatti

Aloneness
The cold chill of this life
But you have been in my mind
Throughout the season

How long this night?
The chains on my wrists and ankles
Whisper horror in my ears

The food half-cooked
Thrown on the dirty cement floor
The water contaminated
My cellmates lice and bedbugs

I have no other way to tell you
How they mutilate my soul
Every morning before the sun is awake
Do you hear my cry?
Can you feel my pain?

The guards
Have turned the prison
Into a charnel house

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A Red Flag of Hope - Maina wa Kinyatti.pdf

Bad News on a Scrap of Newspaper
by Roque Dalton

Nowadays when my friends die
only their names die.

How can I hope, down in this rotten hole,
to take in more than the newsprint,
the sheen of delicate black letters,
arrows deep into personal memories?

Only those who live outside the prisons
can honor the corpses, wash off
the grief for their dead ones with embraces,
scratch up the grave with fingernail and tears.

Not those of us in jail: we just whistle
to let the sound play down the news.

Download: 

Bad News on a Scrap of Newspaper - Roque Dalton.pdf