Your cell is a cavern; the guards
grinding teeth outside your grotto

marginally refined ape-men; you
the last human in the world

of triumphant beasts. Is your pen
the key to emancipation?

No. The lock has no keyhole
and welded beyond breakage,

bolstered by all the energy
invested in orchestrating

your captivity. Such formality
staged for the incarceration

of one soul. The vilification,
the public outrage, the trial

and the theatrical castigation
all to ensure that the curtain

forever falls over your life. What
could a pen possibly do

to alter the absolute plot
of the script of so-called justice?

Zilch. Your freedom is untenable.
Barbarity always possesses

the upper hand. Don’t waste
your vital ink doodling tears.

In your pre- or post-historic cave
you are the insider archaeologist.

Your pen is a shovel, chisel
and brush only for exhuming

the bruised icons, recovering the abject
tales and treasures from beneath

the stone, lava, rubble and sand
of the storms of tyranny. Please

don’t get sentimental now.
You, writer in prison,

may yet be our saviour.