They arrested me last Saturday,

I’ve been detained almost a week,

Woken every half an hour,

Deprived of food and sleep,

They beat me again this morning,

This time with a strap and a cane,

I tried not to show how they hurt me,

But it’s hard not to cry out in pain,

Every time the cane struck at my body,

It seemed to split my skin down to the bone,

I prayed but the Lord never heard me,

That these bastards might leave me alone,

Maybe the Lord was too busy,

With the other poor souls they have here,

We’re all called political prisoners,

And controlled by a regime of fear,

I hear them sometimes in the evening,

And I cover my ears with my hands,

To muffle the screams of the tortured,

This is Hell, and I’m one of the damned,

They tell me that I’m a subversive,

Hell I don’t even know what that means,

But I say that I am to appease them,

But my words are drowned out by my screams,

They want me to say who my friends are,

And to what terrorist cell I belong,

And I’ve tried from the first to convince them,

They’re mistaken; I’ve done nothing wrong,

I was just in the wrong place; the wrong evening,

And spoke to their most wanted man,

And they say that it proves I’m subversive,

This is Hell and I’m one of the damned,

I’ve tried to explain, I don’t know him,

We were just on the same plane from Boulogne,

But they’ll ask me again in the morning,

When they tape those wires to my groin,

And pass a high voltage along them,

But not enough ampage to kill,

They want me to say that I’m guilty,

And God help me, I know that I will,

I’ll give them some names and addresses,

Of innocent men such as I,

In the hope it will end all this torture,

And they’ll let me go free, or I’ll die,

They don’t want to know about justice,

Or that I am an innocent man,

They’re enjoying the power they’re feeling,

This is Hell and I’m one of the damned,

By S.E.Ralph

10-4-2007