Hunger strike

(Grevë urie)

Even within prison
There is a prison.
They throw you into it,
For example, if you do not work.

Lying on the floorboards
Of your coffin cell, you have not eaten today,
Nor yesterday, nor the day before yesterday, nor three days ago,
Nor since the Second World War,
Nor will you eat tomorrow, nor the day after tomorrow,
Nor when you are dead.

"Go ahead and die!" said the guard on the first day,
On the second he squeaked like a torn boot,
On the third he fell silent.
The stains on the wall trembled in his face.
On the fourth day, he said: "Eat!"
"What's wrong," he said on the fifth.
Then came the sixth day. In fact
Nothing happened. The seventh day hid
Behind the ninth. The first year of Christ
Before the November national holiday.
The death of the tyrant was delayed.
He was as stubborn as an ass.
The men from the command came
            to your cell,
All with their heads bowed, reflecting
In the dish of cold soup.
The dish was the eye of the cyclops.
The mice were eating the bread, scampering about,
Musical notes on the scores of... doctrine.
The walls
Dance back and forth,
A cry runs barefoot
Down the corridor.
The cockroaches take fright. Look how they scuttle
Skull-less, out of the seams of memory.
Patches of light from somewhere
Lay in the room
Like vomit from a sick day.

(Saturday, 4 February 1984)