Good people in chains.
Ask me where the poets are
and I will show you a heap of bones
rotting in a cold prison cell.
Ask me where the singers are,
and I will show you thousands of men
sleeping quietly in mass graves.
Ask me where the writers are
and I will show you maimed and mutilated men.
For good people are every where but in chains.
The drums have been silenced by the gun,
the guitar arrested
and the flute assassinated!
The piano has fled to exile,
the library burnt to ashes and librarians sentenced to death.
Ask me where the actors are,
and I will show you Stella Nyanzi, bleeding helplessly.
Ask me for the artists,
and I will show you miserable faces
wrapped in a cloud of terror.
Ask me where the good people are
and I will show you the heavy chain squeezing their necks with the order from above.
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Submitted by BernardGabrielOkurut on March 31, 2021
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 45 sec read
- 13 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXXABXABX XCCXX AXXXXAX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 768 |
Words | 151 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 5, 7 |
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"Good people in chains." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/96863/good-people-in-chains.>.
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