WRITING - Gulag Earth

‘Berlin - Madness’ (C) Geoff Hall, 2008.

A poem written out of the despair of being incarcerated in a State Prison for political dissidents - prisoners of conscience, imprisoned by those without one. One feels the madness of the one-way conversations, the weariness of always having to fight for freedom. How long will it take for people to wake up and see that the State is not our friend, but our enemy, our gaolers and interrogators? But they are not our masters, our superiors, but the deniers of our humanity.

Gulag Earth

(A poem for political prisoners)

One-way conversations with the Divine are not real

conversations, they are monologues to despair

to fatigue, to heartache.

Oppressed and not free.

Living yes, but the living...dead.

Made in the silent image of the Divine.

And still, despite my bleeding heart

there is no answer.

Just the solace of a reassuring silence, the gloom

of depression; the shadow cast on

an already darkened land.

One-way conversations are for mad men.

Earth is one huge asylum, a Gulag at best.

My home is a padded cell.

My family shows concern for my condition

but they have no cure for what ails me.

The only breath not wasted is for a silent prayer.

The perfect balance. My silence and the silence of

the heavens.

When the light in my cell goes out

they assume the spark of light is extinguished in my soul;

that god-shaped whole...

But resistance comes in many ethereal ways,

that they cannot detect

which builds to a fortification of resistant materials.

Relentless. Resilient.

The conspiracy of silence

here on Gulag Earth.

Jack Stanza