How long should your holler
Redeem the arthritis in the street?
Your life’s contract mentions no
Assurances about meaning or fulfilment.
Indeed our list says you do not exist
Therefore these despairs about the Bomb
Do not exist. We announce in the next report
How people like you are exactly going to be dealt with.
In fact measures are already in train
To railroad your destructive human tendencies;
Drink your regulation tea with a spoon of caution.
Your fears exist only on the paper of which flesh is made.
Dambudzo Marechera
EDITOR’S NOTE
Originally published in West Africa on 06 Sep 1982, p. 30. This diplomatic transcription preserves the wording and lineation visible in the archived page.