Ahmad Shamloo. Iran.c.1959.Punishment. From This Prison Where I Live. The PEN Anthology of Imprisoned Writers. In this place there is a maze of prisons/and in each prison a myriad of dungeons/and in each dungeon countless cells/and in each cell scores of fettered men./*/One amongst these men,/persuaded of his wife's infidelity/plunged his dagger deep./*/Another amongst these men,/desperate to put bread in his children's mouths,/ slaughtered in the searing midday heat./*/Some amongst these men/on a quiet rainy day/ambushed the money lender./*/ Others, in the hush of the alleyway/crept stealthily onto the rooves./Still others/plundered gold teeth from fresh graves/at midnight./*/ But I, I have never murdered on a dark and stormy night./But I, I have never ambushed the money lender./But I, I have never crept stealthily onto the rooves./*/ In this place there is a maze of prisons/and in each prison a myriad of dungeons/and in each dungeon countless cells/and in each cell scores of fettered men./*/But I, deep in my reveries,/never lend an ear to them. No,/I listen out instead for a dim echo/ of the endless song of the desert grass/as it sprouts, shrivels, withers,/scattering to the winds./*/And I, were I not a fettered man,/one day at dawn,/like a dim, almost buried, memory,/I would leave this cold, contemptible place/*/And this,/This is my crime.