KICKED A CADILLAC
(Dented a Daimler)

By Chris Faiers

South Africa is very much in the news these days
invading my conscoousness again

like when I was a longhaired hippy
idealistic gravedigger - 22
and summerstudent Brian
who shared Bob Dylan graveyard duets
and was Anglo - Indian
recommended other culture to me
and so I went to see ‘End of the Dialogue’
about South African apartheid
alone, one hot summer night

That was 7 long years ago
all I remember of that smuggled movie
is British-made RB'47s loaded with napalm
based 10 minutes flying time
from black African compounds
tales of murder, passes, degradation
reminded me of 5 years in Georgia
prison gangs amplified
Lester Maddox controlling a country

I am proud that sitting there alone
my anger built and built and built
until neatly filing out of the cinema
into London streets
a big white curbside Rolls or Daimler
or to me a 'Cadillac'
I freaked — I went completely fucking bananas
class elites — imperialisms — socialisms unheard of
I saw the enemy
and in my workboots I kicked the shit
out of that car
right in front of the theatre.
No one stopped me
nor applauded
and I didn't look back
as I strolled away

but I remember hoping
that the rest of the departing viewers
were kicking shit out of that car
in the calm and business-as-usual British way
as they streamed by

Later at Richmond station
I met a young black friend and I told him, shaking a bit
what I had done.
'Congratulations, Chris', he said,
'but that's not like you. You're
so peaceful.'
Right fucking on, brothers in Soweto!
I'm getting even more peaceful.
I'm trading my boots for a 303.

HEADLINE OF THE MONTH

Vorster may get mandate to turn to dictatorship

Published in The Red Menace, Volume 2, Number 2, Spring 1978

Red Menace home page