The Flavor of Dark Dungeons
In a dreadful, sorrowful cell,
I spread my memories—
Infused with the taste of tears.
My soft poems cloak me in ash,
Stretched out with sobs and stupor,
Pierced by the dagger of bitterness,
While the night, bitter and grim,
Grinds my dreams like a mill,
And exposes me—raped by the daughters of old hymns.
I sleep in shattered secrecy,
Suspended on the walls,
Writing to my beloved with the residue of my salty sweat,
Healing myself with the compost of my tale,
Embroidered with patience and pain.
In utter darkness,
I assume the guise of the crimson sun,
Weaving my shroud with threads of ancient freedom,
And the scent of jasmine and distant meadows.
I become a bird and eternal ink,
As vast as myths and towering mountains,
I weave nests in impossible spaces,
A fantasy of place.
I glow with the hue of prophets’ miracles,
Though I am crippled among the earth’s dark dungeons,
Draped in the jailer’s sneezes,
With neighbors—cockroaches and sleepless rats,
And the thirsty remnants of mosquitoes,
Feeding on my blood in this narrow, sorrowful cage.
Visions assail me—
I become cities of flame, deserted islands,
An emperor crowned in roses,
As if I belong to creatures of the seventh planet.
My torment prolongs in electric shocks,
I perish a hundred times each minute,
Watching my grave, then returning from my coma,
Resilient, resisting even in my dreams.
How fierce you are, O nights of dreadful prison!
