With a terrible roar the diesoline-train does pass
as if no trains do run on electricity anymore
and it's in the middle of the night that it is noisy,
do whistle shrilly as if it stands and cannot go any further,
like a wounded animal that is growling somewhere
the lifts do groan with metal upon metal at the mine
while the turbines at Impala Platinum right through the night
at a high tone do almost angrily cry-sing
and bloody red is the high big moon
where factories stand with chimneys smoking
that a person does almost choke on the pollution
and almost purposeless the city hurries on
between the white mine-dumps where stripped trees
against the night reach like skeletons up to the sky.
© Gert Strydom
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