GOING UNDERGROUND.

The bowels of mother earth
We burrow through toiling
Night and day round the clock
Eking out a precarious existence
The voluptuous snake
In whose pouch we ride
Halts intermittently
Disgorging a prince
Or swallowing a princess
And as we pass by each other
Winks, nods and hand shakes
And the black power salute
Reinforce our solidarity.

From my unshared space
I could espy a brother
Dreadlocked and sitting all alone
Just like myself
And even though the iron snake
Is creaking from overfill
We both have enough space
To stretch our tired legs
Because hypocrites do not
As a matter of principle
Suffer pariahs like myself
And natty dread gladly
Veritable hewers of wood
And fetchers of water.

We exchange glances
Glances that are pregnant
With a tacit understanding
Of the African experience
In the subterranean world
Of iron snakes and their charmers.

From nowhere appears a priest
Reeling from teutonic testiness
And as he approaches us schwarz schafe
A thousand white necks are craning
For a glimpse of the imminent spectacle
Of African schwarz fahrer and sinners
Hey presto, natty dread flashes a ticket
My uniform is my open sesame
The priest blesses both of us
But amen sticks in my throat
As I heaved a sigh of relief
We have done our race proud.

I must now make my exit
No sooner have I stood up
Than a pack of white hyenas
Scrambled for the sacrificial lamb
That my space provided
Underground.