Feast of vampire

By Ayanda Billie

(To the miners of Marikana)
The mountain ants gasp blood

Stones turned red
Like a dying moon,
Click Click Click
[Nqanqanqanqa] Sounds of Russian steels
Left the ants
Digging deep

To hide from the screams
Of the falling man,
Each ant with blood
Is a man shot dead,
The learned
Will bear the day
When they drunk blood
Of those who once
Walk with them

Dusty faces
Of man
With drilling machines,
Death arrived
in Marikana,
Stomach war

Fought with pangas
Against the system
Ayanda Billie is a Numsa shopsteward
at VWSA Uitenhage