Babylon has fallen, has fallen
Yea, Babylon has fallen
Woe! Woe! Woe!
Towers that soared into clear blue
are at blocks of stone settled into earth
all gone, all shattered
ground into scattered dust
Babylon has fallen, has fallen
Yea, Babylon has fallen
Woe! Woe! Woe!
Now hordes of warring barbarians
literate, skilled in killing sciences
have come, have come, are here
are building an empire of corpses
humanity’s spirit roams over desert sands
a wailing of lost bereaved ghosts
Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe!
Dennis Brutus is a South African poet. Active against Apartheid, he was arrested in 1963 and imprisoned for 18 months on Robben Island. After his release, he became a political refugee in the United States. Today he is based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, engaged in poetry and activism against all forms of oppression and exploitation. The Centre for Civil Society circulates a Dennis Brutus poem every day. If you want to get a Brutus poem a day, subscribe to the Debate list at lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/debate. This poem appeared in Leafdrift (Whirlwind Press, 2005).