Guantanamo Bay Poetry

From the New York Times:

Prisons make poets of many, no less so the detainees of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. A few of their poems have been declassifed by the Pentagon and are published in this week's issue of Bookforum. Marc D. Falkoff, a lawyer who has worked with the prisoners, arranged for the translations from Arabic and Pashto. The first one reprinted here is by an ethnic Uighar, a Chinese Muslim. The second is an excerpt from a longer work by a Yemeni detainee.

"Even if the Pain"

By Saddiq Turkestani

Even if the pain of the wound increases
There must be a remedy to treat it.
Even if the days in prison endure
There must be a day when we will get out.

From "The Truth"

By Imad Abdullah Hassan

O History, reflect. I will now
Disclose the secret of secrets.
My song will expose the damned oppression,
And bring the system to collapse.
The tyrants, full-equipped and numbered,
Stand unmoved in the face of the Light.
They proceed in the Dark, led by
The Devil, in pride and arrogance.
They have turned their land of peace
Into a home for hypocrites.
They have exchanged piety
For cheap commodity.