Certain of the poems in this book were written literally with the blood of the man who - on August 13th 1968 - made the valiant attempt to free Greece from the ridiculous Chief of the Colonels` dictatorship. In the course of the court martial proceedings, when Alexandros Panagoulis was sentenced to death (twice!), he taunted his would-be executioners:
"I know what verdict is in store for me. The most beautiful swan-song of the freedom-fighter is the deathrattle in front of the firing squad of a tyranny..."
Throughout five black years in total isolation, buried alive in a prison-cell as dark as a tomb, Alekos Panagoulis` only oxygen, his one and only means of surviving was to write these poems, even when he was forced to use a matchstik for a pen and his own blood for ink.