The empty evenings are the most difficult (in answer to Mandi Engelbrecht)
The empty evenings are the most difficult
when alone I write poems,
when I sometimes listen to Classic Fm
while I have got nothing to do,
the two old people
go to bed when darkness comes
and we say our prayers,
at times they insist
that I watch a religious DVD with them
and they talk about the news
and newspaper reports
but much too soon the evening is past
and the cocker spaniel
looks at me with her dark eyes
while the Persian cat goes outside to hunt,
and I read poems of some English friends
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Klipdrift basic training camp
The sun inspects
rows and rows of trees
and at night
the moon is at ease while every thing freezes
and when as a citizen you pass the gate
you become part of the machine
that hurries up and waits
and even if you have a brazen soul
some idiot with two chevrons
and crossed swords on his sleeve
makes you run to and fro
as if there is nowhere else to go
and you will not leave
this hell of a place
before he has made you run, leopard crawl
carry the pole and pee in the hole ten thousand times
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Ode To Spring
I
Lovely spring, like an enchanter freeing
the hard dry earth from being dead,
the first of your works I am seeing
while sprouts appear from winter’s bed
on branches blooming flowers glow
in colours of white, yellow, pink and red
while the early summer wind does already blow
more flowers are rising from the grave by your magic will
while your powers works high and low
from the marsh up onto the hill
and there is new life everywhere,
that comes so suddenly from your great skill
while insects, bees and birds flutter in the air
and not a single leave is shed
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Bus ride at night
At quarter to five
the driver refuses,
that I get on a bus
in Burnett street
because it is already full.
There are men, woman and children
and we talk various languages
while we wait for the bus
and I see a car guard
dancing in the street
while he does tricks like a clown.
We wait on the next bus
and the afternoon passes
and the bus is very late
and it stays away
and just Putco and North Star busses
stop at other places.
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The secret war that is raging in South Africa
The secret war that is raging in South Africa
asks for white blood,
these black people first kill and torture
before they take your possessions.
Incident upon incident I can tell about
where white families have been killed,
just think about the Orffer family
who was killed in Stellenbosch
on Friday 31 July 1994
by black people:
First the trustworthy black maid Sannetjie,
who tried to ward off the attackers with her bare hands
like a Amakeia of days gone,
then the blonde small girl
then the dad and the deaf little boy
and last the mother
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Your love is wicked (parody)
(with apology to Koos A. Kombuis)
When you are crying
I want to strive
to be in your shadow
to feel the pain in everything,
every morning when I rise
I stumble over my bed
and chest of drawers
and when I have nausea from drinking
then I only want to eat
when you are with me,
at times I want to taste you
like wild berries
and even in my dark moods
I want to fall
deep into you
I want to make you stop
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Seasons
I
As if summer will never end
irises are everywhere in the garden
with opening flower after flower
in light yellow, deep purple and rust-brown.
The bright hot sun hangs day after day
in a cobalt blue sky and even carnations, geraniums
and flame lilies are showing their beauty,
are still holding onto summer.
Doves are still cooing in the oak tree,
their are finches and sparrows cavorting up and down
and it’s as if nature is thwarting autumn
while dew is still shining on the leaves in the mornings
until later the sky becomes dull blue
while the sun is getting much more faint.
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
My friend you talk about my people and me
My friend you talk
about my people and me
being equal
to Hitler and the Germans
of the Second World War,
but do not know
that I and most of us Afrikaners
treated black people
like human beings,
never lifted a hand
against one,
that I knew from being
a toddler that they were
Christians as well
when my mother
gave the money that was left
from my father’s funeral fund
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Caught in time
There are great images and events
that for ever
are caught in my thoughts,
like pure mathematics,
where things doesn’t continue
and are frozen
while the clockwork stops striking.
The Eagle that tries to catch
a fish out of the water
of which the feathers
with the dive
rise up,
that hangs frozen
above the waves
before its claws
can ever break the waves.
The sun that stretches out
its first feelers over the horizon
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The hammer’s tale
There’s a tale of a hammer
that dropped from the sky
and fell at the feet
of a warrior chief
while he was hunting
and before he saw it
a flash of blue-white lightning
cracked down at his feet
from a cloudless cobalt blue sky.
Amazed at the thunder
his gaze went into the air,
but he could see nothing there
but he sensed something
and looked more carefully
and something still unseen
threw a shadow covering him
and at his feet lay something strange
while in the east he heard the sound
of something huge
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!