From the Boston Globe:
THE JUST-released “Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak” is a collection of 22 poems by 17 detainees at the US detention center at Guantánamo Bay. Edited by Marc Falkoff, each poem had to be cleared by the Pentagon. The result offers a rare glimpse into the lives of the prisoners. The following is an excerpt.
Jumah Al Dossari
Jumah al Dossari, a 33-year-old Bahraini national, is the father of a young daughter. He has been held at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years. Detained without charge or trial, Dossari has been subjected to a range of physical and psychological abuses, some of which are detailed in “Inside the Wire,” an account of the Guantánamo prison by former military intelligence soldier Erik Saar. He has been held in solitary confinement since the end of 2003 and, according to the US military, has tried to kill himself 12 times while in the prison. On one occasion, he was found by his lawyer, hanging by his neck and bleeding from a gash to his arm.
DEATH POEM
Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.
Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience,
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.
And let them bear the guilty burden, before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden, before their children and before history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul,
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the “protectors of peace.”
More here.