Down in the bowels
Of the earth;
I’ve extracted wealth
That gives you comfort.
I’ve toiled hard
Complaining very little
Drilled rock
Sinking shafts,
Picked and shovelled
I am now obsolete
And useless.
My white brother
Has denied me
The right to defend myself
Turned me into his serf
‘No kaffir trade union’.
The bosses have combined:
Formed a chamber,
Recruitment of ‘native’ labour
Fixing of wages
And regulating it.
I am now useless
And obsolete
27 Responses
The writer of the poem was expressing how he felt about the treatment he was getting from White's in a form of a poem
This poem seems to be about the working circumstances of a person treated unequally by his colleagues and workplace in different ways mentioned in the poem.
This poem talks about how the white people stole inkululeko yethu as Africans how the used us, took everything that was our
Neitheless its attractive poem
I love it