A Love Poem for My Country

for James

I have nothing to give you, but my anger

And the filaments of my hatred reach across the border

You, you have sold many and me to exile.

Now shorn of precious minds, you rely only on

What hands can grow to build your crumbling image.

Your streets are littered with handcuffed men

And the drums are thuds of the wardens' spiked boots.

You wriggle with agony as the terrible twins, law and order,

Call out the tune through the thick tunnel of barbed wire.

Here, week after week, the walls dissolve and are slim

The mist is clearing and we see you naked like

A body that is straining to find itself, but cannot

And our hearts thumping with pulses of desire or fear

And our dreams are charred chapters of your history.

My country, remember I neither blinked nor went to sleep

My country, I never let your life slide downhill

And passively watched you, like a recklessly driven car,

Hurrying to your crash while the driver leapt out.

The days have lost their song and salt

We feel bored without our free laughter and voice

Every day thinking the same and discarding our hopes.

Your days are loud with clanking cuffs

On men's arms as they are led away to decay.

I know a day will come and wash away my pain

And I will emerge from the night breaking into song

Like the sun, blowing out these evil stars.

Source: O Earth, Wait for Me. (Ravan Press, 1984)