In the inner square
In the inner square
just outside the police station
a little group stands around a drum
in which coals are burning
and flames are shooting up
in the dark night.
Between them a man is standing,
holding out his hands
to get them warm
and above them the stars are bright
like lights in the night
but the moon
has a strange colour that particular night.
A woman constable walking past
stops and asks the man:
“Are you not one of those wild men
who are following the prisoner? ”
It’s as if the eyes
of every policeman around the fire
like search lights fall on him
and he shakes his head decidedly
and draws the cap lower over his head
to get hot and avoid their stares.
“I really do not know him. Do not even know
the reason why you have captured him. Just came
to get some heat from the fire
and what injustice lies in this? ”
The women constable frowns
and walks away with swaying hips
and he remark about the way
that she walks,
which makes the other men around the fire laugh
and through the open door
of the police station
he notices how somebody inside
hits the prisoner through the face
and it’s almost
as if he feels it in his own face.
“Friend, you are not from here
and looks just as ruff as him, ”
one of the constables says jokingly
and his tooth glitters white
for his own joke.
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
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