Welcome to the chronicle of my hair, Heather's Hair.

Not in cell alone
Where third degree goes on,
Not in the night without
Challenged by sentry-shout

Not where in deathbright smoke
Prosecutors' words
Not just in the emphasis
Of wall-tapped morse messages

Not in cofessions told,
Not in judge's cold
Death-sentence: 'Guilty!'
Not in the military

'Halt!' and the snapped-out 'Aim!'
'Fire!'and the drums of shame
Scattering the sqaud as it
Drags the corpse to the pit

Not in the furtively
Guarded, and fearfully
Breathed words the message bore
Passed through half-open door,

Not in the 'Ssh!' revealed
On mouth by finger sealed,
Not confine tyranny yet
To rigid featured set,

Peering through bars that still
Show,through that iron grille,
Cries that dumb threats retract
Stopped in the cataract

Of inarticulate tears
Deepening the silent fears
In pupils griefs dilate
Darkened by looming fate,

Not only in 'Viva!' cries
Track down all tyrannies,
Surging on tiptoe, strong
In the acclaiming song.

Where seek out tyranny?
There seek out tyranny,
Not just in mustered bands,
Tirelessly clapping hands,

Fanfares, and opera-stalls;
Just as crude, just as false,
Monuments, art-galleries,
Though cast in stone, speak lies;

Yes, each framed lie can crush.
Even in the painter's brush,
Or in the car with slight
Noise gliding through the night

Where it draws up and waits
Throbbing in front of gates,
There omnipresently,
More than your ancient God

There seek out tyranny,
In school, in nursery,
In father's counseling rule
And in the mother's smile,

In, where a stranger puts
Questions that touch the roots,
Answering the stranger's gaze,
What the child always says;

Not just where barbed wire twines,
Not just between book-lines,
More than in barbed wire, in
Slogans that stun you:

There, more discreet, it is
In a wife's parting kiss,
Near you and at your back:
'When, dear, will you be back?'

In words that folk repeat,
'How d'you do's' in the street,
In the then suddenly softer
Handshake a moment after

Making your lover's face
Found in the meeting-place
Freeze on the instance
Because it is present,

No only in the interrogation
But, too, in love's confession,
In the word's sweet wine
Like a fly in the wine,

For even in your dreams
You are preceded:
In the bridal bed
And in the desire it bred

Nothing you think fair
But it has already claimed;
Your bed it did share
Even when love was named;

It is in the plate, the glass,
In the nose and the mouth,
It is in the cold and the dark,
In the outer air and in your house;

Talk to yourself and hear
yranny, your inquisitor;
You have no isolation,
Not even in imagination

The Milky Way through it becomes
A frontier terrain, scoured by beams,
A minefield, and the star
A spy-hole in a war;

The swarming canopy of the sky
Is a monstrous labour-camp:
The Orator Tyranny
Speaks bells on the ramp;

From the priest whom you confess,
From his sermon no less,
Church, Parliment, these
And the rack, are but stage properties:

Open and close your eyes;
Still its scrutiny lies
Upon you like a sickness,
Following you with memory's quickness.

Hark at the wheels of the train;
This is their refrain:
'You are taken prisoner, prisoner';
On the hill, by the sea, you inhale the same reminder.

In the lightening flash it is seen
In every unforeseen
Little noise; its dart
Lights up your astonished heart

Where you rest, there it is
In boredom's mannacles,
In showers that forge nearby
Bars that reach up the sky.

In the snow, whose fall
Sheer as a cell wall
Hides you while it looks
Through the eyes of your dog,

For it is in all you intend,
In your to-morrow it is at hand,
Before your thoughts it is aware,
In your every movement it is there;

As water cleaves the river-bed
You follow and form it; but instead
Of peering from that circle anew,
Out of the glass it looks at you.

In vain you try to escape its wrath:
Prisoner and jailer, you are both;
It works its own corrosive way
Into the taste of your tobacco,

Into the very clothes you wear -
It penetrates you to the marrow;
You detach your sense from it, only to find
No other thought will come to your mind.

You look about, bubt what prompts your gazing?
You use your eyes, but what do they catch?
Already a forest fire is blazing
Fanned into flame by the stick of a match

Where carelessly you threw it down
As you walked, and forgot to tread on it in,
And now it guards you in the town,
In the field and home and the factories' din;

No longer you feel what it is to live;
Bread and meat, you do not know them;
You cannot have desire, not love;
To stretch out your arm is now denied to you

Thus does the slave forge with care
The fetters he himself must wear;
You nourish tyranny when you eat;
You beget your child for it.

Where seek tyranny? Think again:
Everyone is a link in the chain;
Of tyranny's stench you are not free;
You yourself are tyranny.

Like a mole on a sunny day
Walking in his blind, dark way,
We walk and fidget in our rooms
Making a Sahara of our homes;

Because, where tyranny is,
Everything is in vain,
Every creation, even this
Poem I sing turns vain

Because it is standing
From the first at your grave,
Your own biography branding,
And even your ashes are its slave.