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Poetry

	Gert Strydom
	PROFILE About me Friends (13) Poetry (1888) Prose (37) Photography (5)

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Gert Strydom, 8 march 2013

Our love that was lost

Our love that was lost
has been again found,
but at a terrible cost
heartache drove me into the ground.

Our garden is again blossoming
while in love we carefully plant
kisses and caresses,
swear to each other to be true

and somehow I forever new
that this day of happiness would come,
even in the darkest night
dreamt of you.

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Gert Strydom, 21 february 2013

I have to escape from the city’s roaring din

I have to escape from the city’s roaring din,
from the continuous rushing of hasty feet,
to a place of tranquillity that I do adore
where the breaking blue sea is rushing in,
far away from the crowded busy street
at the shelter of a snow-white pure shore.

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Gert Strydom, 7 march 2013

Elementary thoughts

Humanly we leave words on paper,
while we try to determine the language
of Him who is the core of the Bible story.

                                                         *

We take things consisting out of flesh and blood,
that has got living energy, want to take the elements out,
while we search for the code of life in mortal material.

                                                         *

With our mental capacity we are valued equal
to animals that mutate
while the Bible teaches us about a creation story.

                                                         *

We think that we know the figure road of the universe,
compose theories that declare things in space
while amazed we do look at the great works of God.


                                                         *

Three dimensional we see things,
with length, breadth and depth in which things do fit,
while immaterial we do grope at the boundaries of love.

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Gert Strydom, 1 march 2013

Everything else did cease (Berryian Poem)

In the sheer darkness, of a moonless night
in each other, we blended did not bother
to switch on, to find any source of light
our sighs, our moans we did not smother
all of our thoughts, our deeds were focused on delight.

Our love, our existence had a kind of blurring design
as if every strive, all the things that we held to life
in as single moment, we could find and refine
as if every passion, every kind of drive
were no longer separate, no longer only yours and mine.

We were living out, our endless dreams
love we did portray, in everything we did say
life was somehow not, as it usually seems
while we did kiss, romance and play
with our fantasies, moans and happy screams

while we searched, yearned for quick release
in a sheer moment, acted and did pretend
were searching happiness, some kind of peace
a kind of tranquility, serenity without an end
as if caught in each other, everything else did cease.

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Gert Strydom, 14 march 2013

I need you

I need you,
I need you to think of me,
and in the darkness
I want to see your big shining eyes,

I want to feel your heart beating in your chest,
I want to quench my thirst of you,
I want to hear the tinkle of your laughter,
I want to feel you when we lay spooned together

and I do need you
to love me without any restraint.

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Gert Strydom, 4 march 2013

There is something closing in this winter

(after Ernst van Heerden)

There is something closing in this winter
that suddenly appears
something sad, merciless, something not earned
which in each fallen leave, dead flower

carries death as if everything living
in a way is now handed over
as if customs, hope, convictions
are shredded in the coming darkness.

There are thunderbolts descending
and drawing blue-white lines
as if the Godly voice once again attempts
to awake everything

while any kind of sheltering
is swept away by the one natural disaster after the other
and man’s technological wonders are in vain
while the planet is busy changing

and manmade destruction is spreading throughout nature;
radioactive radiation, pollution and earthly heating
has a impact on everything that lives and animals and man begins to suffer
while extinction circles out wider and wider.

[Reference: Droë somer (Dry summer) by Ernst van Heerden.]

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Gert Strydom, 13 march 2013

Seasons of life

I. Far too rapid (rondelet)

Far too rapid
the long hot summer days sweep past
Far too rapid
love turns to something insipid
and it’s as if spring cannot last
as life does end when days seems vast;
far too rapid...

II. There is a secret power (triolet)

There is a secret power
that pours down with the summer rain
and something special in every shower
There is a secret power
when flowers grow to loveliness in every bower
and with love their impressions do remain
There is a secret power
that pours down with the summer rain

III. Disablement

The garden is reflected in the bright window glass
while the summer rain is splashing down
and flowers swish to and thro, point upward
but they are gone in winter and in summer do reappear.

In this way you find a own kind of disablement
when it seems that a relationship only brings a kind of evil
as if love also at a time does reappear
as if it perishes in winter and in summer is bountiful again.

IV. While in seed hidden lies life’s awakening might (Rondel Prime)

When the irises flower purple, blue and white
early in the month of April
and they bloom lovely before the winter chill
then there is something special to each day and night

when the last heat is still in the sun’s light
before winter stretches out its hand over the dale and hill.
When the irises flower purple, blue and white
early in the month of April

then the early autumn is a colourful sight
as falling leaves does the countryside fill
before winter comes as it will
while in seed hidden lies life’s awakening might
when the irises flower purple, blue and white
early in the month of April

V. In winter

Stripped trees are each a mere skeleton
as if they are separated from each other
and starkly alone with branch
that reaches like fingers up to the heaven

while a strong wind devours the leaves,
lurching them away and spreading them everywhere
and still every tree remain near to each other
where you see them etched against the rising sun.

Sleep softly my darling
while the winter wind sings outside,
tries to come in like a wild animal,
as it rattles the windows of the entire house.

Lie cosily and in easy in our bed
while the rain sieves down
and the sun is stole
as if it’s lost for the whole of winter

and when the smell of new life
spreads softly through everything
and our hearts do jump with joy
under the anaesthetic of love
and I look to where your hair is spread out
like a dashing mane
with peace written over your entire face

[Remark: Please note that in the Northern and Southern hemispheres of earth the seasons are opposite from each other.]

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Gert Strydom, 12 march 2013

I see a small shack

I see a small shack
with pumpkins and rock
on the tinplate roof
to keep it in place.

There’s fog hanging over the marsh
and the croaking of frogs
comes forth like a choir.

I smell rain
that suddenly is falling on the outside
and the smell rises from the red brown dust,
and I see thunderbolts
drawing blue lines
and I am well sheltered
against wind and rain

and around me
the maize fields are green
and I have found my own little Eden.

number of comments: 2 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom, 12 march 2013

Strike of dustbin men

At the gate to the street
there are dustbins
and rubbish bags heaped up
and you have
to walk on the tar road
in order to pass

and it grieves me
that the municipality
now still cannot get this sorted out.

In town the rioters
pass under police escort
and rubbish is being dumped into the street
as if we are living
in the middle of a rubbish dump.

I have to swerve out
to avoid the rubbish
and the rioters are singing in revolt
and scream and shout jeering

and I see them throwing branches
and small trees
into the traffic
as if they have the right
to cause damage
and see the police
still keeping their distance.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom, 12 march 2013

He retched and almost choked in it

He retched and almost choked in it
and as the stinking bile
hit his throat
the dizziness of one too many whiskey’s
hit the mark
and he collapsed against
the chest of drawers.

His wife with her cold calculating eyes
reminded him of a dead fish
with a heart of cold stone
with lips pressed tightly together,

but there was something in the stare,
something that pierced him
and reminded him of the disgust
welling up in his spirit,

and erect she stood rocking the child
her nose inch up, as if he was below her
in each and every way
and anger gave power to his hands,
jerking a drawer out
he hurled it with great force
splintering the wood
against her head.

Like a animal that had its revenge
he was turning away
when out of the corner of his eye
he saw red blood
dripping from the forehead of his wife.

Drop by drop fell
on the baby boy’s shining hair
soaking through to the child’s scalp
and in fascination he looked on.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

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Other poems: For now and for always, The temptation of being near to her, Your walking away is measured in watt, In the garden (ABECEDARIUM), Just for a moment it is there, There are people, Unknowing we may be living in a war zone, Holiday, I yearn for the secrets of nature (sonnet), At 52 the nuts of my country are stripped, A strange dream (triolet), The beach, the morning, Where star systems do disappear in the nought (sonnet), Come to my flower garden, Warriors of the civil service, This morning the sky glitters blue, You must not show any fear, My dear loving God, Sad tidings, Morning, Mirror image, The sun hangs orange red, Divorce V, Divorce IV (Espinela), Divorce III, Divorce II (cavatina), Divorce, Respite, At times we are only set on passing (American sonnet), The peach tree, The gardener, The old guitar (cavatina), Dear Lord God, Still life, Two sides to everything (cavatina), I have missed my country, The sardine run, He lies stretched out in the sun, Africa, There’s no other country, When death’s fingers do me touch, I wonder where is an untouched place that firmly does stand, You never came, I am afraid, The silent countdown, Without matter, Dare you character?, Once I wrote a kind of happy song (Orléans rondel prime), There is no other saviour, Alone we come into the world (for my mom on mother’s day), With hunger in your eyes, Please do forgive, Hoba West Meteor, When I do consider how my time is spent, I see him doing carpentry, When the two of us met, John Phillip, On Pretoria (Italian sonnet), Return, Cecil John Rhodes (Italian sonnet) (in answer to Rudyard Kipling), Afterwards, I walk in the veldt near to Majuba hillock, Vain are the words and deeds that are mine (Rubiyat sonnet), When I do find no place of peace (sonnet), Why I remember the Anglo-Boer war (John Dee sonnet), Lord, only in Your footsteps (Persian / Rubiyat quatrain), On a night, Far too quickly time rushes on (Persian /Rubiyat quatrain), Like any other person, She lives beautiful (sonnet), Where this world is but a grain of sand, On the day of my birth, The crucifixion of the Son of God, Today my heart is full of joy, A prayer (Sonnet), On my birthday, My heart has gone quite in me (Persian / Rubiyat quatrain), Come to me, Soldier: yesterday, At this place I have been before (sonnet), There had been a kind of loneliness, When the early the morning does begin (cavatina), Constantly I am astonished, When I hold you tight, Life is a gift, Bus trip at night, I have not seen the spark of life, Kamikaze, Lucifer at sunrise, The things in a town, When from me she is out of sight, How chilly like winter, Some times, I love you, Long Beach, As my eyes gaze into the dark night, I see her dancing gaily, Right against the morass, African September, A room in the past, The secret room, It had been a hell of spring with the sun hanging scorching, The marsh, For my darling, with New Year, The old year, Today people are not interested, South Africa is also my country, In this distant country, What fanciful lives we lead, As if they are beacons, You are my darling (sonnet), On Christmas, Last night I dreamt of you, Where are we now?, I had dreamt of you, At night the mind plays its tricks, Inside you and I dance, One Military Hospital, Something about a bird in a tree, While the year hangs skeleton, I gave my love to you, No other painting, Field of maize, The red arum lilies, Would my words, When the front door, At dusk, Child, Cry, Maybe 4, Maybe 3, Maybe 2, To be us, Photocopy machine, I do love Africa, While everything is turning brown outside, The crumbling man, My small Jack Russell dog, With self contempt I stand in the veldt, The fallen Cuban soldier, There is a time when night sneaks in, After the farm invasions in Zimbabwe, The small redbreast sings and dances, I love you, Walls, A child is a strange thing, Baby lies so fast asleep, It is a pitch-dark night, Hecuba, A pastor,

Latest items:

Poetry

Our love that was lost

I have to escape from the city’s roaring din

Elementary thoughts

Everything else did cease (Berryian Poem)

I need you

There is something closing in this winter

Seasons of life

I see a small shack

Strike of dustbin men

He retched and almost choked in it

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