Living Under Apartheid by Dennis Brutus

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 Brutus Poem: "Living Under Apartheid"  

Date: 12/1/09  

Dennis: "This was written in transit last August."

Living Under Apartheid  

You wake up each grey morning  

In a fog of sorrow  

Hoping some shaft of brightness  

Will flash to relieve your gloom.  

Some disaster, horror, catastrophe  

Will signal the end of the system.  

True, there are those who love it,  

Who fight to preserve it,  

Love its privilege,  

Its assurance of protection,  

View its possible end with horror.  

(Years later they will profess ignorance, will claim ignorance  

And a supine government will accede,  

Greed for power can make all deals possible).  

True, they were uncomprehending,  

That hunger for free air baffling,  

The raw sore on wounded selves unintelligible!  

We worked each day with grimness,  

Monotonously each day at dawn,  

Dragged ourselves up,  

Tensed for the daily struggle.