The winter we endure

Another meaningless monument rises to
Heroes past
Who squirm in their restless graves
As erstwhile comrades
Vomit
Hollow
Words of regret
For a modern martyr
Riddled with hired bullets

 Enablers of treason
Accomplices to plunder
Their own hands dripping complicit blood
Now vow
No stone unturned
The full might of the law
Everything in their power 

When history mocks their two-faced tongues
Spineless men
Skeleton women
Preside over our winter
While desperate praise-singers
Search for swallows
To beg us to believe their spring

The fiction of a new dawn
A rising sun
A better life for all
Lies buried in faction wars
Of scorched-earth rogues
Who put first the party
Path to elite enrichment
Betraying a country
Its hopes
Its dreams
To the voracious gods of greed 

Traitors triumph
Robbers swagger
Killers strut free
With brazen impunity beyond the law

While true people’s servants
Have track-records trashed
Careers curtailed
Their very hearts
Crushed 

Which road will be named for Moss Phakoe
What building for Andile Matshaya
Who will build a monument for Babita Deokaran

As we weep for them
We weep for ourselves 

For the winter we still endure. DM/ ML/ MC