Signs Of The Time Poem by Gert Strydom

As time passes
there are brand new cars
in which armed black people sit
dressed in black suits, with dark windows

beyond which they hide
while they do their duty
as agents of the government
and destroy criminals?

While white nurses, artisans,
fired mine workers
are begging for food at DJ’s restaurant,
some with degrees stay in squatter’s settlements
or in the veldt or in the bush

it is as if the world
is turning on its head in this country
and able persons are jobless on the street,
with incompetents in every government position.

As time passes the devil is totally loose:
the Falcons, who first had been the scorpions
(a South African agency similar to the American F.B.I) brake in
at the wrong house, in the middle of the night

breaking down the front gate,
breaking down the garage door,
breaking down the front door
forcing every room’s door open

breaking and destroying just what they find,
going through all the possessions
of a innocent man
destroying left and right and centre

without taking notice
or even realizing
that they are making a mistake,
they cause

more than a hundred thousand rands damage,
violate a citizen’s privacy,
his right to a free existence
so as if they can just come and go

as they want to
and when the owner
of the house wants to get a summons
they admit that they

by mistake harassed him
had broken all the mentioned things,
had caused huge damage,
say that he must make a list

and claim from them,
make a list
of witch they will pay
every single thing

and surely the man in the street,
the general citizen
have to take the money from his pocket
for taxes

and a person can only wonder
where they next are going to invade,
whose life they next will threaten,
whose things they are going to break?