(Photo: (Great Karoo, Cape Province, South Africa, 1983 – by the author)
There is a road in the hinterland,
Running straight, like a grey riband,
Where I lost my soul one day, at noon,
By the hands of a wicked man.
'No-one can hear you scream,' he sneered,
'And none will believe what you say.
What kind of woman hitches a ride
In a place where the caracal prey?'
The heat arose from the swelt'ring tar
And shone like a stream in the sun
While around me stretched scorched wilderness
And I knew there was nowhere to run.
So I poked him with my Bowie knife -
His shrieks scratched the sky as he fell -
And, as night moved in with its scavengers,
I strode down that road through Hell.
Running straight, like a grey riband,
Where I lost my soul one day, at noon,
By the hands of a wicked man.
'No-one can hear you scream,' he sneered,
'And none will believe what you say.
What kind of woman hitches a ride
In a place where the caracal prey?'
The heat arose from the swelt'ring tar
And shone like a stream in the sun
While around me stretched scorched wilderness
And I knew there was nowhere to run.
So I poked him with my Bowie knife -
His shrieks scratched the sky as he fell -
And, as night moved in with its scavengers,
I strode down that road through Hell.
