The Dead Guerilla
They dumped him down at my feet,
gutshot neat, and cold stone dead,
then laid his body in a dusty heap,
beneath the bright green leaves of a
Mopami.
Just one more guerilla for the body count,
in a communist uniform caked in blood,
and the dark red dirt of the Rhodesian
veld,
and the soft warm breeze of an African
morning.
Caught in an ambush the Stick Commander
said,
as the Fire Force crew did a weapons
check,
and rearmed the stick for the next patrol,
one wounded, one K.I.A. and one bastard
got clean away.
Not even a fuckin' AK on him, the Corporal
said,
just a couple of grenades in his belt,
as we checked his stiffened body,
and took fingerprints for the special
branch in Salisbury.
Strange said the Trooper as we turned
him over,
to roll him in the grave,
there's an exit wound in his brain old
chap,
I guess a pistol in the mouth sure simplifies
the paperwork.
No more the guerilla songs, I hummed,
no more the war trail from Zambia,
and no more the freedom fighter for
this young man.
Somewhere a Matabele mother's heart
is broken...
but yet she doesn't know it.
