Intimations Of Immortality (In Answer To William Wordsworth)

I

Love is something that we see
in a eternal light
with a own illumination in the darkest night
and its goodness is more than mere charity

as if immortality comes to it
when it is true and sincere,
when we really hold someone dear
and it fills our souls bit by tiny bit

and where our lives are only fleeting
we long for some perfection,
something more to our affection,
something that goes beyond each meeting

of the human kind
something of the divine,
something rare past fine,

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poem by Gert Strydom
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It’s the second day that I visit

It’s the second day that I visit
on the farm near Reivelo,
just past Vryburg.

They farm with cattle, goats,
a few sheep, muscovy ducks, turkeys
and chicken.

The scrambler bumps up and down
right through the field
and go past rocks and bushes,
while we drive along the rough field
and the hot wind
cut across my face
and there are places
where it cannot go.

It’s time to transform
young bulls to oxen,
to brand cattle

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poem by Gert Strydom
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Psychiatry or is it not? (parody)

(with apologies to Johan Steyn)

The smiling tribal witchdoctor
with his bitter cure has got me under control,
everything does not begin and end with me:
with something he says he will fix my small thing
and I become aware, that I am different
but near to being unhappy
and aimless I walk back home.

The balance I can tell you
and now I do not walk the straight way.
My friends come to steal my things!
my wife is passable and during the day
when I whisper to Tristene and Isolde
and wake up they glare at me like wide mouth dragons
and scream that they do not “alls wille.” (do not want “to do everything.”)

I shiver when I can,
suddenly feel strange,

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poem by Gert Strydom
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No place for a courting-candle

A girl’s voice laughing softly
cuts through the night
and enters by the room’s window
and wide awake
I (six year old child) sneak out
to find the source of the excitement.

Gardiël studies with Martin
that boards with us
and both are matriculating
because he complains
that his eyes burn
from the old paraffin lamp
that gives light
at their farm house
where there’s no electricity.

A bright electric lamp
burns in the room
hanging ten centimetres

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poem by Gert Strydom
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Johnny Everyman [2]

In George uncle P.W. Botha are staying in his house
and at seventeen Johnny is too young to get a car
when his call up instructions indicates Johnny to a camp

and life is really terrible,
Johnny is taught about his holy rifle
and he notices how people really loose their heads

and in Johnny’s life nothing happens by accident
and he is old enough to ride a troop train.
In George uncle P.W. Botha are staying in his house

and however Johnny tries
time ticks off too slowly,
Johnny is taught about his holy rifle

must cross the camp from side to side
and if he doesn’t want to he has to serve a jail sentence of three years.
When his call up instructions indicate Johnny to a camp

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poem by Gert Strydom
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Signs of the time

As time passes
there are brand new cars
in which armed black people sit
dressed in black suits, with dark windows

beyond which they hide
while they do their duty
as agents of the government
and destroy criminals?

While white nurses, artisans,
fired mine workers
are begging for food at DJ’s restaurant,
some with degrees stay in squatter’s settlements
or in the veldt or in the bush

it is as if the world
is turning on its head in this country
and able persons are jobless on the street,
with incompetents in every government position.

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poem by Gert Strydom
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On the way to Uniondale

One stormy Easter weekend
while I was driving on route sixty-two,
I found a beautiful girl
next to the road
just twenty kilometres from Uniondale
at the Barandas turn off,
the wind was swishing through her dark hair
and I heard it cry over the Kammanassie Mountain
and her thumb was out asking for a lift.

I brought the car to a standstill
and next to the road red allows were flowering
and she was dressed in a navy blue jacket,
and dark green pants
and I was worried that she was getting cold
and in the inside light of the BMW
she looked whitely pale
and smiled brilliantly
when we drove away
and when I asked where she was going

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poem by Gert Strydom
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Love is something that you cannot remove (Catena Rondo)

Love is something that you cannot remove
quite suddenly you know, she knows it too
it is in everything that you say and do,
love is something that you cannot remove

quite suddenly you know, she knows it too,
it is the very quaintest kind of thing
that to you both is suddenly happening
quite suddenly you know, she knows it too,

it is the very quaintest kind of thing
when sense and sensibility brings
to your actions, thoughts and your feelings wings
it is the very quaintest kind of thing

when sense and sensibility brings
a secret understanding that is true,
sincerity that encompass both of you
when sense and sensibility brings

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poem by Gert Strydom
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He Is Caught In Time

(after Mandi Engelbrecht)

The faces around him is a confusing sea
of unknown people for whom he does not care
and he keeps away from pleasure and enjoyment;
he does not anymore understand his Bible or God.

No beautiful girl catches his eyes
and he is afraid for all of life,
people on the street are strange and silly;
he does not anymore understand his Bible or God.

One dark night his wife left him,
talked cheerfully about her new lover,
took everything along even the last flower vase,
he does not anymore understand his Bible or God;

she told the whole world that he whores around,
that he peeps at other women,
that he keeps no Godly command,

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poem by Gert Strydom
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What a big joke

What a big joke
the new defence force has become,
where three thousand soldiers
strike and run riot
and it’s people
who chooses to be soldiers.

If Jan Smuts ruled
they would have been dead
as he let them
load a gun
for Jopie Fourie
and to me it’s nothing less
than revolt
for which people in the past
could pay the ultimate penalty.

I almost laughed myself apart
when medical troops
where brought to justice

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poem by Gert Strydom
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