And another one escapes!

When Obma said he would close Gitmo, I was overjoyed! Perhaps now this particular blot on our badly stained escutcheon could be erased. No such luck. I wrote the poem below in memory of the three who did escape in June of 2004. I offer it again in memory of, Yemeni Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, 31, who is the first prisoner to die since the White House changed hands four months ago.
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Three Free at Last

There are hundreds bound for Heaven
For they’ve served their time in Hell,
In the BushCo run resort
That’s known to all as “Gitmo.”

Black cells, blinding lights,
Horrendous volumes of sound!
Rubber hoses, cold cells, fire and ice,
Deafening weeks of silence in solitary cells.

Seed of Afghan bounty hunters,
Picking up young men at random.
Forty pieces of silver per head;
No questions asked nor answers given.

Days spin out to weeks, to years.
Beatings, dogs, rape and fear
Waterboarding, tied and hung in agony.
Electric shocks, insults, threats it will get worse.

Ignorance is resistance, in the interrogator’s mind.
No law, no rights, no answer to their questions.
Eternal torture, you’re here for life,
Even if found not guilty.

Your Holy Books are spat upon,
Chewed by dogs and worse.
Your name has been exchanged
For a number and a curse.

Death is not worth many things,
But you’ll not find them here,
Doomed to spend your youth, your life,
Many years of abject fear.

To seek release, you decide
That you will eat and drink no more.
A few weeks or more of discomfort
And you’ll reach that far off shore.

But, “No!” your jailers say
They’re worried for your health.
They’ve always stopped the torture
When you could endure no more.

So they strap you to a feeding chair,
Through your nose they shove a tube.
Crusted with the blood and snot
Of those who’ve gone before

And down the tube they pour the gruel
Of forbidden food and offal,
And joke and laugh and pat your head
And grin at your tears of shame.

And so you renounce your time of fast
Even that is denied your soul.
And your captors rejoice at your years ahead
To be lived in durance vile.

But then you work with infinite stealth
And ropes from rags you twist
And in the dark of night
You fashion a saving noose

In silence you step off your bunk
And in minutes your soul flies free
Looking down at that tortured thing
That was so hard to leave.

And laughing at your torturers
When they look into your cage,
To find that there’s nothing left
To be a target for their rage.

Three have escaped and flown to Heaven
Inspiration for hundreds more.
Who seek an end to their living death
On Gitmo’s far off shore.

Steve Osborn
11 June 2006
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Somehow, some way, we have got to take our nation back from the thieves and murderers who have controlled it for so long, and apparently still do, with a new puppet who speaks English in full sentences and is of a darker hue, but the message is the same and the Imperial Storm Troopers still go forth to kill and occupy yet more small nations and We the People find ourselves in an increasingly more restricted Prison Planet of our own.