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Crying against the wind

I

I saw boys growing up as
Christians,
learning about God,
being taught at school,
to respect
about discipline,
to stretch the mind
and the boys were young and innocent
and for us there were peace.
We slept with unlocked doors,
the police did their job
to the best of their ability,
but the world changed.

II

I saw the effects
of the terrorist bomb
in church street
that smote the innocent
people in the street
and young and old
men, women
scarred, mutilated, maimed,
and cut into bits and pieces
by shrapnel and the deadly
rain of flying glass.

I saw an academic hospital
filled in every hall,
and the few doctors
and paramedics and sisters and nurses
and accountants, clerks,
and office people
issuing disaster cards
and admitting the living.

III

I saw young boys forced to become
a part of a deadly war machine,
and they were barbered, drilled, cursed
and trained to be the best soldiers,
learning discipline,
the strength found in oneself,
about friendship
and suffering the consequences
of killing humans beings.

I saw young men
playing Russian roulette
and at times
wishing to be dead
and I saw boys
becoming better persons
than they were
and starting to be
true believers
of the almighty One
and others turning
into the worst
kind of human beings
and losing all religion,
Integrity and decency
and the madness of hate
taking its toll

I saw boys going
through dense bush,
living in the field,
tracking and destroying deadly terrorists
as just another day’s work,
driving armed vehicles
and battle tanks,
fighting against great odds
and winning every battle
and the war.

I saw war,
the destruction,
the desolation that it brings,
the suffering of the innocent,
the savage carnage
and dead enemies
in great numbers
and people with shot off
legs and arms.

I saw friends die,
shot to pieces,
toasted by prosperous projectiles,
smashed by mortars
and killed
in most of the ways that war brings
and politicians lying and deposing
each other
and the world changed.

IV

I saw religious fanatics
killing innocent people,
crashing planes into buildings,
getting the war
that they begged for,
dying the death
which they sought
and innocent bystanders
paying the toll
for their deeds
and the world changed.

V

I saw the borders being thrown open
to all of Africa,
criminals streaming in,
selling drugs, running prostitution,
lost two cars
to robbers that the insurance
did not pay
and my best friend
left the country
after a hijacking.

I saw children
smoking marijuana, doing crack cocaine,
injecting themselves with heroine
living like vagrants,
whoring around,
robbing from their parents,
braking into houses,
escaping from rehabilitation,
going to jail,
losing the reasons to live,
desperately trying to get the next fix
and dying from drugs and Aids.

VI

I saw reverse racism
that changed laws,
discrimination,
white people with degrees
and experience without work,
while untrained black people
brought every government department
but the taxman
almost to a standstill
and foreign black aliens from all over Africa
having greater rights
and electricity being cut
and the country was in darkness
and the people lived in poverty
and tatters
while they thought about what they had lost
and nobody was counting the cost
and the oppressed were crying in vain
against the wind
and waiting for the rain
that brings life back again.

poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
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