United in Death

Without a home, without a heart
Without a hope, our forward march
Resonated. Drumming, drumming, drumming
Ever in my mind, echoing my heart

Or is it my heart echoing the drums?
Order has been cast off like a tattered cloak
And I drown under invisible weights
Bearing the fat man’s ever-growing yoke

As he stares from afar, his nose tipp’d down
At our meagre efforts with each man down
He plunges the dagger, “send more down!”
And ever and we go—down, down, down

Into the trenches and many further still
They stare from their thrones beneath tiny hill
Built in haste by those who cling to hope
Even as it fades with each master stroke

For the Motherland! We cry, They cried,
We cried. But now it is the others
Who cry on our behalf, for there are no tears
left to cry. For our brothers!

Is the new chant, and within it
For ourselves. For in places of madness
The animal takes hold. Within our hearts
(our tortured hearts) we hold a fighting glow

At least that’s what they tell our mothers
While we wait en masse Death Row
United in will! united in heart!

United in death is all we know.