Their placards cried in red
For freedom, for rights denied: all day
Underground yet the pittance
Could not even buy ball shorts for a kid;
So in big reds the placards protested
Thinking you could overcome
Your animal lust and act human.

Through the sweaty soweto air came
your sirens swinging through terror-torn streets.
You wanted

The sirens to spark off dread
In their furrowed chests,
And your presence as that of the devil.
Alas! Though

In the tear-gas storms many
Are kissing the blood-drenched soil
At their exit, martyred by your
Never silent guns
And though those hell bells are tolling

Tomorrow must break with a new dawn.
And with it, Uhuru must descend
As a bull wearing the sinews
Of the gods:
And beneath your armchair it will jerk its head
Tossing you overboard. Then

The sirens, knuckles, boots
And sights of sprawling black corpses
will remain in yawning volumes of history.