Shadow of a Gunman

“The bomb and the bullet

are better than the ballot”,

they say it with flowers on graves

and in urban streets,

where the acronymic attacks went on and on.

I.R.A or U.D.A. A.N.C and E.T.A.

the letters sprayed wherever they may

be read with hope or fear.

The road from Sharpeville

always leads to bombs

in Church Street…

The Spear of the Nation

is the people’s weapon.

Tambo and Zuma and Mbeki

are politicians’ names now.

And the dead do not vote, after all,

and better like this, is it not?

For from murderer to minister

would be a bridge too far, else.

Sharpeville or Shankhill,

the names conjure conflict,

injustice, justification

- as tit justifies tat,

as an eye for an eye for an eye for an eye

will blind us all in the end.

So yes, the shadow of a gunman is long:

to forgive and forget is for the divine

and the foolish, but more fool those

who prefer the cross on a grave

to the one on the paper.