Poems of Thu Reh

Like all prisoners, the life of a political prisoner is very difficult. Some prisoners perhaps sit around feeling sorry for themselves or wasting time in useless chatter. Other, however, use the time to reflect, learn and plan ahead. Thu Reh of Burma reflects on his time in a Thai prison.

A Prisoner's Life of Politics

Harsh behavior
Harsh words
Harsh places, and
Harsh ideas to conquer others

The big group pretends to be winner
But they have not truly won,
For they have only ideas about being big.

The small groups stay quiet
But there is not really peace
For they are full of dissatisfaction.

I think they do not know that
Understanding is the source of peace
And they do not know the value of smiling.
But I understand them.
Their bad experiences
And the society
Create their ideas.
Their injuries build their behavior.

They are mostly young,
Not much more than twenty.

Instead of studying,
Learning to understand
And finding the ability to smile,
They sit in jail.

If we can make them smile,
Or help them to understand
That they do not need big and small groups,
Then they can truly smile at each other.

Conflict

In jail.
People spend their time watching tv,
watching football games.

One friend talks about football players,
the price of the T-shirts they wear,
how many dollars for their shoes,
how nice are their clothes,
which famous actor uses these clothes and shoes,
how................

Everybody is interested in his story
and listens intently to his learned sharing.
One friend says he likes Nike T-shirts.
Another says he likes Adidas Shoes.
And others say they like.........

They ask me,
Which do you like, Nike or Adidas, or...?
I say,
No. I just think about the people
who are working at Nike factory
with such a low salary.

March 2, 2000

Dealing with Injustice

They have so much power,
through their laws,
which they use to abuse our case,
trying to confuse us
and drive us to despair.

We can see,
how afraid they are of the people's power,
because we are creating that people's power.
In reality, they do not really understand power.

Our faith protects us.
Sometimes we lose, and
sometimes we win.
We continue the fight against our anger
and we avoid despair.

But one day....
They will know what true power is.

March 14, 2000