Money from Botswana

the night moves quiet, no goddamn noise, no mercy—just MK slipping through the shadows like a drunk looking for one last bottle, decreed from some exile hole, dragging the armed fight deep into those white zones where the streetlights quit years ago, and the spear of the nation slides in clean, a rusty blade shoved to the hilt in the gut of the beast.

then the bombs hit, a raw clap ripping through sleepy suburbs, shaking the braai smoke that hangs lazy over sizzling boerewors, fat dripping into coals while the radio spits out those Springbok tunes, Faure’s guitar whining sweet and useless. The idea was simple, brutal: wake those white bastards from their dream, let them taste the liberation fire, make them lean harder on their apartheid bosses and choke the whole machine.

somewhere else, another blast rattles the city’s bones—like Church Street, the Toti’ Shopping Centre, Joburg Magistrate’s Court—limpet mines, car bombs, shit stuffed in dustbins, murder and mayhem under a mad moon, twisted metal bleeding, glass screaming like a wild saxophone solo, blood drumming on asphalt, bodies tossed in some ecstatic ruin while sirens howl the last chorus—pure carnage on the blood streets.

and tonight, why not? —twin to Magoo’s Bar—orders from the top, cadres and activists ready to blow the sad night to kingdom come in Durban, that sweaty jazz-soaked port city panting under Indian Ocean stars. The bar throbs on Marine Parade like a cheap neon heart, packed with apartheid’s boys slamming triple brandies, off-duty cops with shirts open, guns bulging, eyes hunting the crowd like they own the dark.

the bomb assembly—clicking plastic and metal together like building a bad hangover, chop saw screaming and grinder biting iron bars that once kept thieves out, now sliced into hungry jagged pieces flung in a bucket with the rest of the hurt, smell of burned metal thick, arms aching, sweat stinging eyes. and then, packing it tight with explosives and SZ6 charges, everything sharp and ready for flesh.

at 9:15pm, the young operative rolls up in the blue ’78 Ford Cortina—MK cash from Botswana, cold policy cooked in operational headquarters—sniffing for roadblocks, nothing swarming. June weather mild as a whore’s whisper, winter lying, sunny days gold and dry, and in the boot, sixty kilos of death waiting. He parks, walks away, and the fireball erupts, shrapnel singing death songs like angry bees, the black menace, orange fury and black smoke tearing the place apart.

carnage, death, and the release; the spear triumphant,
three dead in the thunder—
seventy-three maimed and bleeding on a humid pavement,

press howls in anger,
white-hot hate boils over,
the pro-apartheid crowds