So, the other day I was invited to perform at a benefit for the charity Freedom from Torture. We were asked to read a poem of ours, and one from someone else, that fitted the theme of torture, or freedom from it. I thought the evening would be fairly sombre in tone so I wanted to write something amusing, but found the subject matter difficult to squeeze a laugh out of, as you may imagine. So I wrote this instead. (apologies for the lack of stanza breaks, I still haven’t got to grips with html)
I wanted to write
A funny poem
About torture.
But laughter
Stuck
In my throat
Like splints
Under fingernails;
I opened my mouth
To let it out
But Torture
Water-boarded its flight,
And downed it
With simulated drowning.
Torture would not allow itself
To be trivialised by
Privileged Western woes,
To be bathetically compared
To ‘people talking on their phones
In the quiet zone’ or
‘Being forced to watch
The dancing worm of death
While Iplayer buffers’
Torture remained mute
In the face
Of my attempts at humour,
As silent as a secret cell
In a private prison
On the soil of a compliant,
Client state.
Even our universal suffering
The Dharma seeks to end
Seems trite when compared
To the horror
Of Barney the Dinosaur
And Sesame Street
Punch-fisting ear-drums
For hours on end
At volumes that blank out
The strobe-etched screams
‘Some are calling it
A cruel and unusual tool –
And many parents would agree!’
Death is funnier;
Grinning at its own punchline
That always has them
Rolling in the aisles.
Torture suggests continuance,
A condition that doesn’t end
Even when it has.
And yet, like any pain
And everything
It passes.
And often passes Justice
On the way
To settle its account,
If not the cost.
And though us bugs
Are often too close
To the rug to be
Delighted or amused
By its pattern,
Indifferent stars
Gaze fond light-years upon
Our planets revolutions
And laughter tinkles
In the twinkling of spheres.