Slaughter at Marikana.

1.

Bullets tearing,
into muscled flesh,

as,
bodies slump,
dead as dust.

Sweaty and bruised,
slogging,

mining the land of the ancestors,

descending into hell,
day by wretched day,

for shiny metals,

like those shiny metal bullets,

that tore,
into muscled flesh,

as,
bodies slumped,

dead as dust.

2.

How can we mourn,
the slaughtered,

how do we cleanse,
our blood-soaked hands,

without,
betraying our complicity,

in the slaughter at Marikana,

as we lightly tread,
on the mine-fields,

of greed,
of profit,

on the backs,
of the slaughtered dead.

(dedicated to the human beings massacred at Marikana)