Tired

Prison, today I surrender to you.

You know I have fought you,

Tooth and nail,

No holds barred,

These five months.

I’ve snapped my fingers in your fave

and sung lusty melodies

in the gloom of my cell.

I’ve held loud colloquies with the walls

Filling the loneliness with bragging defiance.

You know what you’ve done to me

these past lonely months?

You’ve denied me food and drink;

you’ve bulldozed my mind

and laid waste my dreams,

till the warscape of my thought

looks like Guernica,

bombed and blasted by fascists.

You’ve taken my wife and child from me

and amputated without chloroform

the wherewithal of

love and affection.

you’ve destroyed my habits’

taken me from my books,dammit,

and my work,

feeding me constantly on self-defeating perversion,

like rotten apples

tossed out from hotels

at dawn.

You’ve poisoned me,

 you’re good at it.

But today I’m tired and beaten.

You’ll admit it’s been

an unequal fight,

the dice have been loaded from the start ;

the entire state machine,

men, rifles, uniforms and spies

against one man.

I give up prison,

if that’s the way you wish to win

I throw in my tattered towel

and holler ‘enough’.

But don’t get me wrong,

you’ve not made me sorry for myself,

for I hate self-pity

as a virgin hates her chastity.

You won’t see me cry or whine

Or beg for mercy on my knees.

I won’t unsay a word I’ve said,

Won’t lick the spittle

I’ve once thrown up.

You haven’t made me want to live

a whit differently if

I were to live again.

I’m just a bit tired, prison, pardon me,

just a bit weakened by

hunger and loneliness,

and often I am so tired

that I watch my cigar burn between my fingers

and just cannot puff at it.

I wish to sleep now, prison

Prison, today I surrender to you.

You know I have fought you,

Tooth and nail,

No holds barred,

These five months.

I’ve snapped my fingers in your fave

and sung lusty melodies

in the gloom of my cell.

I’ve held loud colloquies with the walls

Filling the loneliness with bragging defiance.

You know what you’ve done to me

these past lonely months?

You’ve denied me food and drink;

you’ve bulldozed my mind

and laid waste my dreams,

till the warscape of my thought

looks like Guernica,

bombed and blasted by fascists.

You’ve taken my wife and child from me

and amputated without chloroform

the wherewithal of

love and affection.

you’ve destroyed my habits’

taken me from my books,dammit,

and my work,

feeding me constantly on self-defeating perversion,

like rotten apples

tossed out from hotels

at dawn.

You’ve poisoned me,

 you’re good at it.

But today I’m tired and beaten.

You’ll admit it’s been

an unequal light,

the dice have been loaded from the start ;

the entire state machine,

men, rifles, uniforms and spies

against one man.

I give up prison,

if that’s the way you wish to win

I throw in my tattered towel

and holler ‘enough’.

But don’t get me wrong,

you’ve not made me sorry for myself,

for I hate self-pity

as a virgin hates her chastity.

You won’t see me cry or whine

Or beg for mercy on my knees.

I won’t unsay a word I’ve said,

Won’t lick the spittle

I’ve once thrown up.

You haven’t made me want to live

a whit differently if

I were to live again.

I’m just a bit tired, prison,pardon me,

just a bit weakened by

hunger and loneliness,

and often I am so tired

that I watch my cigar burn between my fingers

and just cannot puff at it.

I wish to sleep now, prison,

sleep till my tensed flesh melts,

memories unknot, lungs emit

the foulness and stench

you’ve fed them on.

I don’t care if you keep me down,

spreadeagled under the

weight of stonesd,

crucified by your barbed wire

for fifty years more.

I know I won’t live that long.

I can see a strange person,

rather sad-looking, fleshless, white-boned

at the foot of my bed

night after night,

smiling liplessly, calli

ng me to the beyond.

I can’t sleep at

night, prison,

for this bore of a visitor won’t let me.

figs to you prison, for I’ll be off with him

long before decided

to kill me.

February 15,1966, Night. 

Utpal Dutt

Utpal Dutt was detained under the DIR in Calcutta in September 1965, along with prominent communists, for his political activities . He was released in March 1966.

son,

sleep till my tensed flesh melts,

memories unknot, lungs emit

the foulness and stench

you’ve fed them on.

I don’t care if you keep me down,

spreadeagled under the

weight of stonesd,

crucified by your barbed wire

for fifty years more.

I know I won’t live that long.

I can see a strange person,

rather sad-looking, fleshless, white-boned

at the foot of my bed

night after night,

smiling liplessly, calli

ng me to the beyond.

I can’t sleep at

night, prison,

for this bore of a visitor won’t let me.

figs to you prison, for I’ll be off with him

long before decided

to kill me.

February 15,1966, Night. 

Utpal Dutt

Utpal Dutt was detained under the DIR in Calcutta in September 1965, along with prominent communists, for his political activities . He was released in March 1966.