Good And Bad Old Days Poem by Niki Nicholas Nkuna

The good and bad old days
All trouble and dance everywhere
The authority steering the boiling porridge to quell the stinging spattering
Fire underneath conflagrating
Troops grew in numbers like raindrops
Flooding the vast country like the black cloud blanket
Only to be thwarted at the point of strength by the black unrelenting vortex
The veil has thus lost the grip lifting to the skies to reconnoitre the mountains
Splattering of ‘Amandla, ’ sporadic on the mountain tops and valleys
A horrific sight indeed!

The good and bad old days,
All trouble and dance everywhere!
Like a vast dam bursting at the seams
Farmers had no choice but to bolt for cover
Scant hope, like a maimed octopus
Skimping haplessly with no tentacles to block the loss of breath


The good and bad old days,
All trouble and dance everywhere!
Like equally competing teams
Warriors victims and heroes the same
Laugh and cry the same
Run and hide the same
Bluff and sure the same
Hope and fear the same
Death and survive the same
Fight went on, hope for freedom and despair in hot race
Outstripping each other now and then like racing cars
Winter and summer deepening, raising hope and despair
Sometimes long and short, bleak and bling with no winner in sight

The good and bad old days,
All trouble and dance everywhere!
Like disgusting cockroaches mushrooming everywhere
The predator so sure about the war ahead
Sheaf in hand but ignorant of the land mine behind the boot
Sooner the war had to be restarted again in close shave
The gargantuan wheel ever turning, grinding victim and hero the same
With scant brawn the victim counting the heroes’ desperate attempts
Victim and hero submerged in blood flood
Red faced, plugged each other’s strength
Staggered to the peace table to sign the pledge
For the grindstone to grind the air not human bodies anymore!