Around the corner I have a friend

Long time back, I read the famous book  'Papillon' - an autobiography of man wrongly convicted who then endured hardships in the most notorious prisons in terribly harsh and disgusting jail conditions. My heart moved as I read the autobiography. I even read Banco - the second part of the autobiography too and was amazed at the determination of the man for having endured so much for a crime he never committed.

Like Papillon, a friend of mine is in real distress, convicted for no sin or crime of his. He was there at the right place but terribly at the wrong time. When tides changed, the culprits made good with fortunes and ran out of the country, leaving this friend of mine to be convicted of their sins and got behind the bars.

Not much of a writer ever, but the captivity and utter loneliness has awakened a poet in him and he has started writing. He has sent me a poem he has written from his solitary abode, each word of which speaks of the anguish and pain he suffers all by himself when the world moves on under the free blue sky.

Here is what he writes:

Around the corner I have a friend
in this city that has no end

The days go by and weeks rush on
and before I know, a year has gone

I never see my old friend's face

now we are busy, tired man

Tired of playing to make a name

Tomorrow I say I'll call on my friend

Just to show that I'm thinking of him

But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes

and distance between us grave and grows

Around the corner yet miles away

Here's a telegram: sir, he died today

That's what we get and deserve in the end
Around the corner, A vanished friend.

JIMMY

These words are really moving and I sincerely pray may his anguish is over sooner than before and he walks free under the open sky - free as the wind once again. Oh dear God, do help him and grant him his freedom.

Posted in: Art and Literature,Poetry,Point to Ponder