POEM
The winter we endure
In Memorium of the whistle-blower
Another meaningless monument rises to
Heroes past
Who squirm in their restless graves
As erstwhile comrades
Vomit
Hollow
Words of regret
For a modern martyr
Riddled with hired bullets
Enablers of treason
Accomplices to plunder
Their own hands dripping complicit blood
Now vow
No stone unturned
The full might of the law
Everything in their power
When history mocks their two-faced tongues
Spineless men
Skeleton women
Preside over our winter
While desperate praise-singers
Search for swallows
To beg us to believe their spring
The fiction of a new dawn
A rising sun
A better life for all
Lies buried in faction wars
Of scorched-earth rogues
Who put first the party
Path to elite enrichment
Betraying a country
Its hopes
Its dreams
To the voracious gods of greed
Traitors triumph
Robbers swagger
Killers strut free
With brazen impunity beyond the law
While true people’s servants
Have track-records trashed
Careers curtailed
Their very hearts
Crushed
Which road will be named for Moss Phakoe
What building for Andile Matshaya
Who will build a monument for Babita Deokaran
As we weep for them
We weep for ourselves
For the winter we still endure. DM/ ML/ MC
Crass to call this beautiful, but it’s something, Mike. And I’m glad it’s been said. Thank you.
Mike, just a thank you for this. It’s too potent, too painfully accurate, to say more right now. Jim C.
Tragically, it’s poetry whose meaning we citizens understand too well… but rawly and beautifully expressed… thank you