Editor, thanks for the poets’ column,

I'm still here, a young man and no poet.

I just like to be on top, Editor:

clubs are at hand but I fight with lightning.

Go forth and teach all nations!

What have we learnt beneath the sun?

While our people die, strangers cart off our country.

Wake up! Death was put to sleep, you said!

Maqoma said so, and they called him mad

for spurning the madness of surrender.

Are you trampling your nation's girls,

enslaving them in your land?

What have we learnt beneath the sun

from their bibles, please tell me, my friend?

They clapped shackles on Africa,

hurled her down with cannon and musket.

“We're British: the Kaffirs can die!

We'll rip the candy from your mouths.”

Speak as of old in Hintsa's voice.

(The names of kings confuse me.)

What have we learnt beneath the sun

from their bibles, please tell me, my friend?

“We're British: the Kaffirs can die!

A baby baboon's no stranger to misery.

God is the toy of black behaviour,

paganism's rampant.

Yeha, black home, the lid's on your pot,

the land of your fathers rumbles and trembles.

For a long time, men, they've claimed to know all,

for a long time, men, we hear news of death,

all we see is blood on the people.

Even the word of God is in peril.

What's this?

Now what have we learnt from the whites?

Our joints crack under their bibles,

our country's in shadow, our heroes fall:

in the land of our fathers lie rough mounds today.

Our enemies plundered our pots,

our knives and sacred vessels,

all the gourds and little trowels

passed down through generations.

Wailings indeed!

They danced with their faith in the scriptures:

“Discard your striped woollen blankets”

but today we're nothing but insects.

Cannon roars in the land of our fathers.

Wailings indeed!

Mercy, Africa, strife-torn land!

There's little indeed we can take for the truth.

Let's remember the days of our fathers,

seal Tshiwo's deserted villages.

Peace!