No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison

by Behrouz Boochani

The sound of the deepest kind of affliction / The sound of hopelessness. A nightmare about the nights. A nightmare about loneliness / The sound of moaning inside the cauldron of the dark night / The sound of moaning floating over the ocean / The sound of moaning wading through the jungle that lies beyond the fences / The sound of moaning drags itself along in combination with other sounds / The sound of moaning, like a poisonous arrow from the archer’s bow / The sound of moaning, a sound without rebound against the darkness of night / The sound of moaning, then it disappears out into the universe.

I do not find these poems out of place at all! Gayle did