‘I want to break the walls of ignorance’,
Raif Badawi posted in his blog –
they threw him in a cell to teach him sense.
How simple Raif’s requests: freedom of speech,
the rights of women and minorities –
what platitudes to have to preach.
Raif’s wretched, filthy, lice-infested jail
with its stinking toilets and obscene graffiti,
has, he discovers on a sticky wall,
words that re-charge his resolution.
He reads with great astonishment
that ‘Secularism is the solution!’ –
exactly what he’d written in his blog –
and Raif Badawi’s fetid Saudi prison
fills for a moment with pure oxygen.
Mark Haworth-Booth
Ah, the IT. So pleased to know it still exists. Good poem, Mark. Harrowing.
Comment by Frances Corkey Thompson on 1 June, 2017 at 4:03 pmFrances
Past, present and future we be….
Comment by Editor on 7 June, 2017 at 10:33 amSo glad to see this powerful poem getting greater circulation. We need more like this to keep us all awake, however painful that wakefulness.
Comment by Liz Willis on 1 June, 2017 at 8:18 pmThanks Liz.
Comment by Editor on 7 June, 2017 at 10:33 am