Your cell is a cavern; the guards

grinding teeth outside your grotto
marginally refined ape-men; you

the last human in the world
of triumphant beasts. Is your pen

the key to emancipation?
No. The lock has no keyhole

and welded beyond breakage,
bolstered by all the energy

invested into orchestrating
your captivity. Such formality

staged for the incarceration
of one soul. The vilification,

the public outrage, the trial
and the theatrical castigation

all to ensure that the curtain
forever falls over your life. What

could a pen possibly do
to alter the absolute plot

of the script of so-called justice?
Zilch. Your freedom is untenable.

Barbarity always possesses
the upper hand. Don't waste

your vital ink by doodling tears.
In your pre- or post- historic cave

you are the insider archaeologist.
Your pen is a shovel, chisel

and brush only for exhuming
the bruised icons, recovering the abject

tales and treasures from beneath
the stone, lava, rubble and sand

of the storms of tyranny. Please
don't get sentimental now.

You, writer in prison,
may yet be our saviour.