(Here goes nothing: as I've said earlier, I don't really 'do' poetry, but this, like the few others I've posted were written a long time ago, and I'm really just uploading them here to 'test the water,' as it were and to see how this damn site works before I start with any 'proper' posts!)
This particular effort was written when I was lot younger and it was meant to draw an analogy between the apartheid system that was at that time present in South Africa, and the British attitude to blood-sports, particularly fox-hunting and hare-coursing.
FOXES AND HARES
As the sinking sun set slowly at dusk,
Casting long warm shadows that engulfed the dust,
The Hunters would return from the tall-grassed plain,
Tired but happy, their sacks filled with game.
Soon food-flavoured smoke would linger till light
And the African herdsman would sleep well that night.
Life then was so simple - free from worries and cares,
For they were born to be free - like the Foxes and Hares.
The years flickered by and Time brought with it Change;
And Time brought the White-Man - alien and strange.
And the White-Man was 'civilised' and so started a reign
Of torture and killings and anguish and pain.
And families were driven from homes lovingly made
And the Herdsmen were herded to start the slave-trade.
They were used to being free in that Land that was theirs,
But now they were hounded - like the Foxes and Hares.
Where the Herdsman once lived off the fat of the land,
The White-Man now lives - the Herdsman's been banned:
Bannished to 'Townships' - ramshakle and crude,
Condemned to exist like no White-Man ever could.
Found guilty of living, He's been sentenced to die -
But though His body is broken , his spirits are high.
The Herdsman's been captured in White-Man's evil snares,
But he's screaming and fighting - just like those Foxes and Hares.
Chased and tormented by White-Man's power lust,
The Foxes and Hares are running - lungs fit to burst.
And the red-coated Huntsman sits astride his sturdy mount
As his blood-crazed hounds rip their victim's heart out.
And the terror-filled screams carry back here to UK;
"We'll do something (tomorrow)" is what the politicians say.
And the public is outraged, but does anyone really care
About what's happening to those poor Foxes and Hares?
________________________
(Just proves that my 'poetry' is anything but 'timeless!) ;)
YOU ARE READING
FOXES AND HARES.
PoetryFound at the back of my wardrobe some twenty-six years or so after writing it! Once upon a time, it was very relevant. Nowadays, things are better .... but while the spectre of apartheid may no longer haunt South Africa (officially, at least) the an...
