For them we must speak
Words never again spoken,
Words smothered by the thick palms
Of dictators in dark chambers
Where it becomes impossible to breathe;
Where everything they have seen and heard
Becomes so vast, so complex
Within the confines of the human heart
They have no words to describe
What they have seen and heard and thought;
For them, the silenced, pushed whirling
Out of airplanes over oceans
Through air and clouds,
Drugged, bound, gagged,
We must tell their stories;
And of those silenced in short, obscure headlines,
Forgotten behind concrete walls, lost in caverns
Where words do not echo;
And for those beaten and drained of what
They have seen and heard
Along the streets of the abandoned;
For those exiled into the eternity of never been,
Thousands of miles above
The killers who condemned them to silence;
Thousands of miles above the thousands
In walled villas and high rises
Deaf to the words and screams
Of those never again to speak