Blood Diamonds by Dennis Brutus

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Blood Diamonds  

Brutus poem, 27/3/09

Dennis: "This poem was started two years ago after I saw the movie Blood Diamonds. I finished it this week, thanks to my good friend, the Argentine Marxist Claudia Martinez Mullen. There were other relevant memories: I was in a recent march against Anglo American to protest the way they were taking over the land in Limpopo province in search of platinum. A second memory is of a Thursday afternoon, September 17, 1963, when, near 4 Main Street in Johannesburg, I was shot in the back trying to escape apartheid police, outside the magistrate's court. I collapsed and looked up at the front entrance to Anglo's headquarters."

For De Beers:  

A Diamond is Forever:  

A Death is Forever.  

It is forever.  

A diamond is forever.  

It is so final.  

Death is so final.  

It is forever.  

A diamond is forever,  

De Beers says.  

"To us, there's nothing  

more precious than the  

health of a nation."  

We do not talk, do we,  

of Blood Diamonds?  

We do not talk, do we,  

of displaced peoples?  

Of stolen land?  

Of sweated labor?  

Of bloodied labor?  

Bloodied diamonds?  

For blood diamonds, too,  

are forever.  

2 March 2009, Durban  

For Claudia