I babysat you, but now you are baas.
 I washed your diapers, but now I must go to hell.
 I saved you from a pool, but you shoot my child.
 I love you to earn your hate. 
I hosted you and lost my home. 
I became a human being to you, now I am an animal. I trusted your God, and it stole my land.
Tshenuwani Farisani, In Transit. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing, 1990.
Beware of white ladies
in chemise dresses
and pretty sandals
that show their toes. Beware of these ladies when spring is here.
They have strange habits Of infesting our townships with seeds of:
geraniums pansies poppies carnations. They plant their seeds in our eroded slums cultivating charity in our eroded hearts making our slums look like floral Utopias. Beware!
Beware of seeds and plants.
They take up your oxygen
and they take up your time
and let you wait for blossoms
and let you pray for rain
and you forget about equality
and blooming liberation
Chris van Wyk, It Is Time to Go Home. Johannesburg, Ad Donker, 1979,
You pushed me from the fat of the country to the homelands. You fed me a bogus independence.
 You made me a citizen of a banana republic. And made babies my rulers.
 You banned me from my country of birth, And called me citizen undetermined.
Tshenuwani Farisani, In Transit. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing, 1990.
They are coming back
through woodsmoke weaving from fires and swirls of dust from erratic breezes you will see
ghosts are returning
ghosts of young men, young women young boys, young girls
students:
and if you look closely
you will see
many of them have torn flesh
have wounds bright with fresh blood and there is blood in the sands of Soweto
Dennis Brutus, ‘Remembering June 16, 1976’, in Remembering Soweto 1976. Elmwood, Canada, Whirlwind Books, 1992.
Practical Reason 