Someone Else’s Crime

I will grow tomatoes
When you’ve set me free.
I will live at home in peace
Where all will let me be.

I will wake up cheerful
In the morning to the sun.
I will feel at peace at last,
Once my Freedom’s won.

I have been imprisoned here
For someone else’s crime.
I have lived my life in fear,
And I have done my time.

All I want, is to feel safe -
Relaxed and calm and free.
I have been good, to fellow men.
Why aren’t they good to me?

I try to keep my head up high,
Imagining the day
When I will be allowed to fly,
When I will go away,

And wrap myself in someone’s arms
Who knows me as I am.
I try to think about that day,
As hard as try I can …

I will wake up smiling,
In the morning sun.
I will kiss the one I love, and
Once this battle’s done …

I will grow tomatoes in
My garden in the grass,
And tie my hair behind my head …
And when this storm has passed,

I will sit up late at night
With cats and cups of tea,
I will live no more in fright
Once I have been set free.

I only want this misery
And fear and pain to end.
I only want a life at peace
Surrounded by my friends.

But that will be another day.
Today I must remain
Within the madness of this place
In fear, and hope, and pain.

But always, I hold up my head,
Imagining the day
When I will be allowed to go,
When I will fly away …

Not now. It isn’t over yet
I must sit out my time,
As I have done, for all these years,
For someone else’s crime.

- Written by Anna Vera Williams at Age 33

And when her master wasn’t near,
She shook and trembled with her fear.
Her master came and chased away
The stupid thugs. And every day,
She felt okay, if he was there.
And when he wasn’t, she was scared.
One day the thugs were growing strong.
She had been good, she’d done no wrong;
Her master kept the thugs at bay
With one low growl, they ran away.
But that was when the phone call came.
He had to go. No one to blame.

The little pug, she shook and cried.
She said she wouldn’t stay alive.
The thugs were there, at her front door.
She couldn’t hold them anymore.
She knew that she would be alone.
She got some money for the phone.
She banged her head into the wall.
Her master said, “Well, you can call.”
She shook and cried into the chair …
It didn’t get her anywhere.
She prayed to god it was a dream.
But God was busy, so it seemed.

And that was when, with breaking glass,
Something, somewhere, came to pass.
Someone, somehow, cast a spell.
Against the laughing mites of hell.
And through the night time, something changed,
As if the stars had re-arranged.
And as she slept, we don’t know how,
Her little pout became a growl.

And when she woke she shook a bit …
Okay … she sobbed and had a fit.
But only when she was alone,
Hidden deep within her home.
But when she stepped out of her door,
She wasn’t crying anymore.
She looked the thugs straight in the eye.
She said, “So fight me. Please just try.”
I have had enough of it.
I care no more, oh not one bit.”
She breathed in deep to swell her ribs.
She put her hands onto her hips.
She stood on tip-toe when she spoke,
To not look up on taller folk.

She told the thugs to go to hell.
She told them she was doing well.
She grabbed her kids, said “lets go play.
Let’s fight these creeps some other day.”
Now many stories could be told,
Of how that puppy grew so bold,
Some stories haven’t happened yet
The war’s not over, don’t forget.
Our pug has yet to grow full-strong …
But … wait a minute, that was wrong.
The little pug has no more time
To waste her lifetime with this slime.
Our pug is pretty, cute and smart.
She won a merit for her art.
She did what no one else has done;
Went round the world when she was young.

She crossed alone the stony steppes,
When she was sick and nearly dead.
She can write and learn, and knows
She makes things better where she goes.
Her education rivals all.
These pugs are stupid, new, and small.
They bat their eyes with pimpled cheeks.
They spread their lies because they’re week.
Our pug has yet one crime alone.
She turned her real self into stone.
For she is not a pug at all.
She is a wolf who acts so small.

Now there’s our story, that was how
The yipping yap became a growl.
The little pug has far to go.
But now she sees and now she knows.

While witches laughed upon their thrones,
The Lion breathed upon the stone.

The story hasn’t ended here.
The ending isn’t even near.
This is the beginning now.
It will be turned around some how.
And many battles will be fought
But one day it will be forgot.
One day the wolf will calmly lie,
And glare at anyone who tries.
And one low growl will make them run.
And that will be a lot of fun.

But this is how it all began.
The pug who always ran and ran.
She turned around and smiled and said,
“I am myself, and don’t forget.
Now go away and let me be.
Because I want to have some tea.
And – oh, yeah, one thing, by the way,
Don’t come again until I say …”

Now that’s my story, that was how,
The little yelp became a growl.

The world was black, but on that day,
Our pug became a beast of prey.

Written by Anna Vera Williams
February 9, 2008

Dedicated to All Pugs

My stomach twists, my heart feels weary pain
Forever I search reasons to refrain
From visiting the place where shadows lurk;
Where papers wait, to tear my mind from work …

I wonder what dark letters I may find
To torment me, and occupy my mind,
For days or weeks to come – but then again
I might just find a letter from a friend.

Perhaps it will be empty! Then I’d sigh
And know that, for one day more, I’ll survive.
Perhaps there will be something I should know …
I won’t find out, though. Not until I go.

When I was young, my life was free and clean.
My letters were so few and far between.
A postcard from a stranger I’d forgot,
A note about a magazine I bought …

But now those days are over. I remain
A prisoner of this dank unholy bane.
Some remedy there must be, to be had,
Before one day my mailbox drives me mad.

- Written by Anna Williams at age 32

Take me away
To your far away land,
Buried like dust
In the prints of your hand,

Where your smile doesn’t crack,
And fade,
Before the hours
Draw into days.

I lay in the bed
Of a perfect stranger.
I played with his words,
Mimicking danger,

And he begged me to tell him
My endless verses,
Beneath the morning’s
Sleepless curses.

His fingers played
With the curve of my side.
I told him of
The day I died ―

A secret I guarded
So closely from you.
I told him the truth.
I told no one I knew.

Written by Anna Williams at Age 17
Washington, D.C.

Young and strong and free at last
From pain. And growing far too fast,
Yet not too young to have a past.
I never speak about it here
I seldom voice a hidden fear
Or whisper to the quiet stars
Or weep for all that beauty mars
Or whistle by the amber mountains,
In search of purple salt-less fountains.
Listen far across the hills
And barefoot by the mountain rills
For a faint and distant sigh.
Torn by time, and death. And lies.
If you glance within your heart
You may tear your life apart.
You may justify your sin …
Search for angel dust within.
It may kill. It may heal.
The treasures of the sky grow real.
Break away mid earth and fire.
Give to glory’s deep desire.
In the frail moments of youth,
Every lie breathes unwashed truth.
Naught matters past reality,
Hard, correct and fancy-free.
You can sing false pleasure’s hue.
You can pierce me through and through.
Draw a blood drop from my eye,
Make me love you, make me cry …
Still I remain, as light friends tend,
Yet the same, unscathed, unbent,
But hardened for the next hard mile,
To the next unfamiliar smile,
And trust it not, as children would.
Though, God knows, how I wish I could.

For I am taught. And taught by thee.
Enlightened in reality.
With little left to do but pray
For the dim and distant day
When naught is yearned or questioned why
But the clouds who roam the sky.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 17
Prague, Czechoslovakia

The bays
Of salty waters
Mark our days;
By the ripples,
By the tides.

We come forth limping,
― Leave in strides.

And the heat lays
Like a hound.
The children know
The crooked sounds
Of serpents, lurking like disease
By the banks
Beyond the trees.
There is the dark and endless sea.
There are spirits watching me.

This land robs comfort,
Seethes defeat.
It maims and strengthens,
By the heat
― The heat of hate, the heat of guilt …
The day I learned that flowers wilt,
I burst and shook,
And cursed the sky.
My feelings died.
I knew not why.

Now we spread no hell, no rain.
Now we live here, free from pain
And stronger, by neutrality –
It shapes our immortality.

None can touch us,
Strike us,
Love us.
None can break
The spell above us.
… None can ever set us free.
We are surrounded by the sea.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 17

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 10
Barnstable, Massachusetts

Do you ever walk the street
And half-imagine you might meet,
Some half-forgotten face from long ago
Although inside you really know,
You’re walking where they’d never go …

Do you ever sit and look
At ancient photos you once took,
Long-lost faces in a book,
And examine them a million times
As if to read between the lines,
As if you might see something more,
That wasn’t ever there before …
Something new, that might resolve
The mystery you never solved.

Do you ever wonder why
Faces wilt and flowers die,
People change and time goes by,
Leaving you to stand and sigh
At night beneath the starry sky
Watching comets fall and fly …

― Written by Anna Vera Williams at Age 26

Rider of the raging sea
Roamer where the rivers roll,
Weaver of eternity -
Guardian of my own soul;

Wrapped within the wings of time,
Captured by a quiet curse,
Bounded by the ruthless rhyme
Of a cruel universe;

Lone upon a mountain slope,
Or barefoot in the valley streams …
I am the holder of my hopes,
I am creator of my dreams.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 26

Written by Anna Williams at age 22