a Cat’s dream
He stretched out on the ground
lying in the sun
and the heat on the long hair
of the red-golden ginger coat
felt really great
and the golden eyes
of the Persian closed
while it dozed away
and air flowed softly
through its flat pink nose.
Two sharp little white teeth
pointed past its lip
as if ready to clip
and stripes ran everywhere
like those of a tiger.
He’d been a good cat
all his life,
cuddled against
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poem by Gert Strydom
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War poet
They who do not themselves fight the battle,
who err as mere humans
has got the power to call up boys
with innocent noble ideals
and dreams
to change their lives radically,
in their humanity, in their existence
and to change from alive and well
to dead and wounded
and then every white young man was forced
to go to jail
or to conceded to duty for the country
and to defend the place of unrighteousness
against something much worse, something more evil and grievous
and what poet has got the ability
to show the way
to the instigators of war?
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poem by Gert Strydom
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Skeletons
Between yellow cranes groaning and bended
I saw people small as ants,
I saw people gather at skeletons of steel and concrete,
lost between ovens that cook glowing,
between hell-hot fires of iron and metal
I saw people struggle in the dusk
and this morning I came
past huge, long pipes that hiss like snakes
between yellow cranes groaning and bended.
Where white smoke are stoked through round chimneys
people were trapped and caged
between hell-hot fires of iron and metal
busy with their work as if dumb,
as if only machines with their humanity missing
I saw people gather at skeletons of steel and concrete,
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Early spring
Lord God, can we ask for your presence,
for a sign of your grace
and let your rain, sun and wind contribute
to the wonder of the coming summer
in the decoration of colours from your hand
and let grass, leaves and flowers now appear
and where it is rather dry,
hear my lament.
Lord God, can we ask for your presence,
for birds to whistle in tree branches,
singing songs about the growth that you bring
in the decoration of colours from your hand
that all flowers that this spring brings
becomes a sign, that you still guard us against evil
and let your rain, sun and wind contribute
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A conversation with Minette
My dear, destiny has separated us
and my life goes on without meaning
and you are at another place, far away from me.
I am seasons and a lifetime gone from you,
but still forever bonded to you
and although I am another person, you are still stay part of me
and in the evenings you are near
when I lift my eyes to the stars.
My dear, destiny has separated us
and only in my dreams my life seems real
when you are like a flower with me,
and I am not blinded by the day’s bright rays,
while I find new meaning,
I feel you material as a human being, when you stand next to me
and you are at another place, far away from me
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Yom HaShoa
There are things
which people never discuss,
like wickedness and destruction
and loss of humanity
that comes with hate.
It’s funny how people
loose sight of God
and declare wars in His name
and kill the innocent in office towers
and lose all humanness.
I could never understand
why like animals,
people have been kept in camps.
Even my great grandmother
died in a British concentration camp
and the names of the predecessors
of many Afrikaners,
stays written on their harts.
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The Rinkhals in Muckleneuk Ridge
We were living in the mansion
in Muckleneuk Ridge
when Heinrich wheeled the
rubbish bin out to the street
to leave it for the collectors,
and the red haired neighbour woman
started to shout at him.
I was just getting out of my Volkswagen Polo
and within a minute I was there
like a avenging angel,
telling her to leave the boy alone
and that the pavement
doesn’t belong to her
and that we have got the right
to put out the rubbish bin
for the rubbish collectors.
She got red with anger in her face,
hissed like a snake trying to spit
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Beyond enemy lines
Above me there’s an onyx sky
and the tarry night is fading fast
and I hear the roar
of enemy armour
and the crunching of tracks
echoes and sound very
near to me.
An electronic signal rushes
thousands of kilometres far
and goes into a night
filled with bright white stars
like a lighting bolt
falling in a dark black sky
and branching out to where
it has to go
to a place where Jacaranda trees
stand in purple bloom.
I match my wits against my fate
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Lotus land
I.
There are no more oxen
to tread through the dust,
not even those of A.G. Visser
or Jan F.E. Cilliers
because they have died long ago
or are eaten
by Afrikaners as steak
and there’s no wagon
to be drawn,
because every chariot has its own power
and its own beauty too.
II.
Fast the kilometres rush past
and marsh and meadow
are driven through before sunrise
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The sum of life
Sometimes I wonder
how life is,
like a sum
with no true answers
and have no result
until its end.
Life stretches
into the distance,
with a end and a beginning
or that is what humans believe;
while nothing can
determine the before and the thereafter
and everything is determined by faith.
What lies on the other side
of life
and what you are
before and after it,
goes from neglibility
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