Harare
The midsummer sun hangs flaming
over the capitol city
which is painted white,
(the same colour as the graves)
in a country
stripped from the white man’s might,
stripped from providing
and exporting food, minerals
and products
where the value of the currency
changes faster than the billion dollar number
printed on the worthless bills.
Just here and there a car moves
as the country is without fuel
and even the traffic lights
are not working
(and neither are most people)
as the electricity is down.
.
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poem by Gert Strydom
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A War Story
There’s a story that have being told
(and I do not know if there is truth to it) ,
that after the slaughtering
of the 47th FAPLA / Cuban brigade at the intersection
of the Lomba and Cuzizi Rivers in Angola,
the mauling of several brigades on the way
to Cuito Cuanavale and the destruction
of that military airfield, the loss of many soldiers,
the destruction of nine Mig fighters
and the loss of huge amounts of Soviet equipment
Fidel Castro was very angry and in a terrible rage
brought his Cuban soldiers in Angola
up to fifty thousand, sent four hundred tanks
and his best pilots to Angola,
after the South African forces had withdrawn
which resulted in the Mig-23 attack
on the Calueque dam
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poem by Gert Strydom
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Vastly The Veldt, The Bush Stretches Out About Me (Idyll) (In Answer To Sir Philip Sidney)
I
Vastly the veldt, the bush stretches out about me
where nature is left to its own existence,
where all kinds of game roam free
and here is nothing to bother with an insistence
and the weary traveller on this earth
can find a new kind of longing, a new kind of hope,
like a kind of refreshing new birth
while thoughts go past the normal human scope
where a person wonders about the creator of things
while serenity is displayed where ever you look,
bees and birds continually sing about happy tidings
and nowhere one can get this experience in a book
that comes as some kind of divine blessing,
you have got to realise that there is more to life and living.
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poem by Gert Strydom
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Two weddings and no funeral
The first time I wed
it was in Parrow church
since it was bigger
than the one in Belville.
The church was packed
and I waited
while the golden metallic Mercedes
drove a couple of times
around the church.
My heart skipped a beat
when you entered
dressed in white
and to this day
your beauty still baffles me.
I was at my nerves edge
and so were you,
but we did fine
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Usama Bin Laden
Hated by a great part of humanity
and blessed by maybe more
and his desperate deeds
that pulled people out of live,
a super country couldn’t stop.
Miserable to his soul
that a super power used him and his people
as pawns in a power struggle
and later left them like rubbish on a dump,
he made that power
pay a sacrifice for her deeds.
True to his religion
and steadfast to what he believe,
nobody and nothing
could stop him in his decisions
and ultimate mission.
What looked to others
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poem by Gert Strydom
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A Ducktail Called Stan
There was a man they called Stan the ducktail,
a well build biker with very long hair,
his real name could have been Sam
or Dick or Dirk
no one really still knows
but he carried chains
and knuckle-dusters
that he used as fighting tools
(and sometimes his bare fists did the thing)
whenever a game of cards, pool, snooker
or even darts did not go straight
he took a swing
and rumour had it that he had even
knocked some cops through shop windows,
had send them straight to hospital
he was a hippie in the time
that free love and marijuana
was in some circles acceptable
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poem by Gert Strydom
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Far Too Little We Know (Enclosed Triplets) (In Answer To John Keats)
I
Not all kinds of things can be explained
by mere science or by some philosophy
and so the essence of life has remained
without its knowledge ever been gained
a very great kind of strange mystery
in that it does exist unrestrained,
when couples from pleasure have not abstained,
as in love some small cells brings a child to be
while after death life cannot be maintained
or knowledge of its wellspring be retained
while its source seems divine, something Godly;
not all kinds of things can be explained.
II
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poem by Gert Strydom
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The Young Man
(in answer to Elisabeth Eybers)
Under the shower her man is soaking wet
where she wraps her arms around him
and around him water splashes.
His skin is soft under her hands,
she washes down his spine
and she almost slips, are against him
and the floor of the shower is slippery
when she moves still closer to him.
Under the shower her man is soaking wet
and he smiles softly with white shining teeth,
she can feel his muscles tightening with power,
she washes down his spine
and when she slips, she has to move her grip on him,
with water flowing over both of them
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The thunder cat
In the bush I see a strange thing,
a secret cat
that like a phantom
follow our tracts, shadowing behind
leaving no tracts of its own.
Red eyes glow at night
with the intensity of a fire burning
but every time that I really look
it’s out of reach.
Around the orange-yellow fire
where we are barbequing the meat
from the day’s hunting
I can almost smell the monster
where it sneaks out of sight
around us.
I wonder what has awaken
in the wild veldt, the jungle
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Into The Happy New Year (Catena Rondo)
There was some rain earlier in this dark night,
outside rockets again do whoosh and thump
in through the open window the cat jumps,
there was some rain earlier in this dark night;
outside rockets continually whoosh and thump,
crackers go bam, bam, ka-boom and ka-boom
dogs bark in fear, howl hysteric outside my room
outside rockets continually whoosh and thump,
crackers go bam, bam, ka-boom and ka-boom
and it is old year’s day that’s almost gone
while the brand New Year is now rushing on,
crackers go bam, bam, ka-boom and ka-boom
and it is old year’s day that’s almost gone
at half-past eleven the neighbours celebrate
a new message my cell-phone indicate
and it is old year’s day that’s almost gone,
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poem by Gert Strydom
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