Down there a road gang pecks
with picks and shovels
to the beat of a work song.
Tears of tar and dust
mix with rivers of sweat
on a broken brow.
The words of the song rise
in a crescendo higher and higher
to the dizzy height of an office window
where airconditioned executives sip
chilled beer or whisky on the rocks
and make love to their blushing secretaries on luxury couches.
The setting sun comes peeping through curtained windows;
it scratches with talons of an eagle
for consciences
locked safely with bonds and securities.
in a Chubb safe sarcophagus.
A street cleaner picks papers with a palsied hand
shovels them into his satchel
as if to cook for supper on a stove box marked
'Keep your city clean,
Hou u stad skoon.'
Clean!
Clean of what?
When a blind beggar sits at a street comer
and strums his battered guitar
and sings
"Though I'm blind
My soul can see.'
Here where a pickpocket snatches
a wallet, a purse, and flees into an alley.
Where gawking yokels,
their shoes caked with cowdung,
come flying like moths to the bright city lights,
only to have their wings clipped
by the smooth-tongued confidence tricksters.
Where passes a pair of nut brown babies,
two flesh pedlars on a nocturnal stroll:
they jingle ample breasts and buttocks -
Wares up for sale.'
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