Cry Africa

This is a poem I wrote today about the way that South Africa went from apartheid to chaos and the way that the future itself was poisoned by the actions of the ANC in achieving their 'victory'.



Cry Africa.

Cry Africa, for this is freedoms shame,
A necklace of car tyres aflame, burning bodies,
Burning schools and the ashen dream,
Children killing children for the ANC,
And the futures endless orphaned scream.

Liberation was a lie, just another lion in wait,
Now we all live behind our own prison gates,
No phoenix could ever fly from that pyre,
Since May 20 1983, when Pretoria was targeted,
16 bled white in the gutters of Church Street.

The future lay aborted, mishapen and stunted,
All hope like our limbs were torn from us,
A new beast is now born from mother Africa's womb,
A jackal from the veldt, a gangster
Smiling like a politician.

These tribal scars will never heal, nor will they fade,
They are cut too deep into the heart and mind,
The wounds of the eternal past, like a virus transmitted,
Are now the badges of our shared future,
worn with pride upon our skins.

Dawn sees what the tide of night has left,
As the day in Soweto begins to sweat,
Dogs tear at her flesh, her skirt is gone,
Dignity and life passed on, she is already forgotten,
And no one even stops to stare.

Nearby a child cries naked in the dust,
As a crust of flies upon her eyes,
Drink from the rivulets of her tears,
No one lifts her to their breast, each moves on
As drunken vultures gather to gloat.