Roadblocks Poem by Gert Strydom

You get used to them,
where at times in peak traffic
they intersect the freeway,
causing you to be late
for a appointment or work,

with annoying traffic cops dressed in brown,
searching your vehicle cockily
with some members of the South African police
standing with sub-machineguns at the ready
dressed in blue arrogance

and when finding nothing
the traffic cops
like a swarm of annoying hornets,
keeps circling the car checking everything
and wasting more and more time

and the Lord knows for what they are searching,
while some are crowding around your wife,
and your two daughters,
looking, keeping on looking
as if they are related to them,
or they in a way belong to them

with one remarking
that some coca-cola
would be pleasurable to drink,
after finding a six-pack
in the car's boot

which causes you to hand
every member of your family
a can of cool-drink,
with eyes blue like thunder
indicating to them
that this is only
for the family's personal use
and rather nonchalantly you open a can
drinking the sweet cold liquid
watching the gathered lawmen

until they bark to you, to drive off
wishing the ladies well
while you feel like sending
the lot of them to hell.