Is this where they dump those rebels,
These haggard cells stinking of bucket
Shit and vomit and the acrid urine of
Yesteryears? Who would have thought I
Would be gazing at these dusty, cobweb
Ceilings of Mikuyu Prison, scrubbing
Briny walls and riddling out impetuous
Scratches of another dung-beetle locked
Up before me here? Violent human palms
Wounded these blood-bloated mosquitoes
And bugs (to survive), leaving these vicious
Red marks. Monstrous cockroaches
Crashed here. Up there the cobwebs trapped
Dead bumblebees. Where did black wasps
Get clay to build nests in this corner?
But here, scratches, insolent scratches!
I have marvelled at the rock paintings
Of Mphunzl Hills once but these grooves
And notches on the walls of Mikuyu Prison,
How furious, what barbarous squiggles!
How long did this anger languish without
Charge, without trial, without visit here, and
what justice committed? This is the moment
We dreaded: when we’d all descend into
The pit, alone, without wife or child –
Without mother, without a paper or a pencil
– without a story (just three Bibles for
Ninethy men), without charge without trial;
This is the moment I never needed to see.
Shall I scrub these brave squiggles out
Of human memory then or should I perhaps
Superimpose my own, less caustic; dare I
Overwrite this precious scrawl? Who’d
Have known I’d find another prey without
Charge, without trial (without bitterness)
In these otherwise blank walls of Mikuyu
Prison? No, I will throw my water and mop
Elsewhere. We have liquidated too many
Brave names out of the nation’s memory.
I will not rub out another, nor inscribe
My own, more ignoble, to consummate this
Moment of truth I have always feared!
April is National Poetry Month and every day the peaceCENTER will be posting a poem about walls, fences, edges, borders. . . you get the idea. Walls that separate us, protect us, define us, challenge us . . . we collected these poems for our Walls Symposium in 2009.
Jack Mapanje (born in 1944 is a Malawian writer and poet. He was the head of English at the main campus of the University of Malawi before being imprisoned in 1987 for his collection “Of Chameleons and Gods,” which criticized the administration of President Hastings Banda. He was released in 1991 and emigrated to the UK.
