Guantanamo

Today the world superpower prosecutes, or is it persecutes?, a Canadian teen, 15 years old at the time of arrest and subsequent incarceration in Guantanamo. France is apparently attemting to have him released since under international law he is a child soldier, if indeed he lobbed that grenade. Our own "cold blue eyes" refuses to do the same for a Canadian child citizen. Nor does his human rights critic say anything. Emerging evidence only this am shows that an American soldier testified (but his testimony was kept secret) that he found 2 men in the compound, killed one of them, then found Omar Khader kneeling against a wall facing away from the battle, and he shot him in the back, TWICE. Perhaps a good moment to post my poem, Guantanamo:

Come stay with me little cockroach
Do not run away as I approach
I mean no harm or any reproach
On your little space I won’t encroach

You leave the crack in that damp wall
Of my little cell which I would call
Guantanamo’s darkest hell hole
Every evening for your short stroll

And when you come and roam at night
I wonder if you see my plight
When you do stare from that great height
Do I seem such a miserable sight?
A withering frame of skin and bone
No sparkling eyes, no muscle tone
Ankles shackled, face bruised, beard grown
Always alone, all ways alone
Always forlorn and not a sound
Mouldy mattress on the ground
And thick damp walls that surround
My body and soul all year round

You cannot know what isolation
Can do to men from any nation
No matter what their occupation
They would prefer strangulation

And all I want is to see you there
Looking at me with a tiny pair
Of eyes that roam every where
And at my face would always stare

You can’t imagine what a pleasure
It is for me in great measure
To see you there in your leisure
A sight of life I do treasure

For unlike me you hit the track
To see your mate in that wee crack
And when you are afraid of the dark
He'll hold you tight and stroke your back

And unlike me you'll see your son
And hold him close and have some fun
Happy hours pass, the day is done
For you have them while I have none

Far away from me my daughter Hend
Who will shield her and who will fend
For her and them and who will send
One word about me going round the bend

Both you and I yearn for contact
With life and love, and to react
To keep our minds and wits intact
Please do come sign with me this pact
That if I die without nurture
Under the knife of that butcher
Who hates my race and my culture
You will depict my true picture

QG