Thankyou very much for sharing this poem with us.I have not read
Martin Carter before.The poem you have posted is full of pain. Poems
written about tyranny share a certain quality of pain which makes
them hauntingly memorable. When I read it I was reminded of the
famous "Requiem" of Akhamatova which I have read recently. The whole
poem is rather long, so I am posting a part of it only.
Farah.
REQUIEM
Anna Akhmatova
Not under foreign skies
Nor under foreign wings protected -
I shared all this with my own people
There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
[1961]
INSTEAD OF A PREFACE
During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
[The 1st of April in the year 1957. Leningrad]
DEDICATION
Mountains fall before this grief,
A mighty river stops its flow,
But prison doors stay firmly bolted
Shutting off the convict burrows
And an anguish close to death.
Fresh winds softly blow for someone,
Gentle sunsets warm them through; we don't know this,
We are everywhere the same, listening
To the scrape and turn of hateful keys
And the heavy tread of marching soldiers.
Waking early, as if for early mass,
Walking through the capital run wild, gone to seed,
We'd meet - the dead, lifeless; the sun,
Lower every day; the Neva, mistier:
But hope still sings forever in the distance.
The verdict. Immediately a flood of tears,
Followed by a total isolation,
As if a beating heart is painfully ripped out, or,
Thumped, she lies there brutally laid out,
But she still manages to walk, hesitantly, alone.
Where are you, my unwilling friends,
Captives of my two satanic years?
What miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard?
What shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon?
I send each one of you my salutation, and farewell.
[March 1940]
INTRODUCTION
[PRELUDE]
It happened like this when only the dead
Were smiling, glad of their release,
That Leningrad hung around its prisons
Like a worthless emblem, flapping its piece.
Shrill and sharp, the steam-whistles sang
Short songs of farewell
To the ranks of convicted, demented by suffering,
As they, in regiments, walked along -
Stars of death stood over us
As innocent Russia squirmed
Under the blood-spattered boots and tyres
Of the black marias.
.........................................................
--- In [email protected], Aditi thorat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> *This is the dark time, my love, * *All round the land brown
beetles crawl
> about* *The shining sun is hidden in the sky * *Red flowers bend
their heads
> in awful sorrow* *This is the dark time, my love, * *It is the
season of
> oppression, dark metal, and tears. * *It is the festival of guns,
the
> carnival of misery * *Everywhere the faces of men are strained and
anxious *
> *Who comes walking in the dark night time? * *Whose boot of steel
tramps
> down the slender grass* *It is the man of death, my love, the
stranger
> invader* *Watching you sleep and aiming at your dream. *
> *-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------
> Martin Carter*
> Thought I would post a poem by Carter for people who weren't
familiar with
> his work. This was written during the dark times of colonial rule
in Guyana,
> but like all good poetry, so true so resonant, even today.
> Aditi
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