God Save Africa

run home
run fast
hear your black barefeet
slap against the dirty alleyway
escape the whips 
and the dogs
and the Afrikaners
(who own you 
and your country)
run all the way from your own
burining school
(flames courtesy of
your fellow students
who are angry
and refuse to be quiet)
all the way to your own
one room home
complete with corugated tin roof
thin scrap metal walls
damp mud floors
hide in your own
bed (made up of one thin sheet
spread on the ground)
the bed you share
with your five brothers and sisters
hide from the booers who beat 
your father
because he tries to fight
hide from the rich white family
that imprisons your mother
and says
"she's just like one of the family"
say nothing of her own family
in the slums of soweto
hide from the river of garbage
piled high outside your own front door
and the sickening smell of sewage
that makes you gag
as you walk to school
hide from the classroom
where they teach you
white history
and afrikaans
and they make you lose pride
in your own ancestry
your own people
hide from the prisons and the murder
and the hatred
the guns and the whips
and the dogs
hide from the dead
hide from the living 
hide from the past, the present, the future
hide from the ignorant prejudice
and weep
weep
because you are a 
poor black child
in South Africa
where everything is
black and white
and cry
"Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika"
God Bless Africa 
God Save Africa


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