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Poetry

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

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Gert Strydom, 14 january 2013

Hospital journal

When the hospital swallowed me into a ward,
when they took me into a theatre
and later put me on a moveable bed
I could not remember you anymore

but still you lingered
somewhere in my subconscious
as if nothing, no hospital
could remove the virus of you

from my being,
my spirit and soul
and still I was not totally alone
but of my visitors
you were never one

and only before God
I could find humility,
could bind my life, my duty
and love to Him
where it was as if each and every day
He waited on the visitor’s bench next to me.

[Reference: “Hospitaaljoernaal II” (Hospital journal II) by Cornelius van der Merwe.]

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Gert Strydom, 11 january 2013

Where we stand at the beginning of a new year

Sometimes we want to go back to a shed in Bethlehem
when we are at the beginning of a new year
and we long to a time and day
where things are different, but life goes on

and in the here and now we are caught,
sometimes full of happiness and at other times afraid
when peace and joy are almost within reach
when hope, new promises and better days almost hang on the horizon

and still He walks like long ago in Nazareth in advance,
while He beacons the way arrow straight
where sometimes we see Him fleetingly
as if He is waiting on us to catch up

but we remain afraid of the coming times
and sometimes loose our view of Him.

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Gert Strydom, 11 january 2013

If we do look at things in history (Blues Sonnet)

If we do look at things in history
no kind of rescue comes from history
and that was just another old story.
.
Peace, the government had promised me
but to war, to death they had then sent me
to set mankind from all kinds of war free.

It was bad, I was under sniper fire
saw howitzer guns open deadly fire
and we moved constantly did then tire.

Every place looked the very same
the weather, the veldt just stayed the same
but to the generals it was a game

and soldiers were sacrificed as mere pawns
in the hearts of great men where evil spawns.

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Gert Strydom, 11 january 2013

Today I float through the sky

Today I float through the sky
falling right through
to the ground with wind in my eye
tumbling down the dark blue hue

and while the wind sings
its own melody
without any wings
the earth rushes nearer to me

until I draw the string
and the parachute opens slamming
and like on a seesaw I swing
with the sun warming

my whole body, the earth rushing
nearer embracing, just before the landing.

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Gert Strydom, 10 january 2013

Day after day [2]

For days he has found his way in the beaconed off world
during the early morning twilight
and he was confined and caged into a life,
almost mechanical in aloofness
all of the time he was tied, almost purposeless,
while to his best he did his task
until the shrill ringing of the five o’clock bell,
and early in the mornings he unlocked his door
in his great love of woman and child
and later he walked back street block after street block
to his wife’s soft greeting, her friendly kiss,
as another gear in the city’s machine,
where he experienced the city as just another shoe
until the setting sun touched the hillocks.

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Gert Strydom, 10 january 2013

Night watch

Security guards walk past while they are on guard
with traffic lights, street lights gleaming
they are armed, in boots and uniforms
while some wait smoking outside of the cafe
and then they get into three patrol cars
and outside its raining buckets full and its night
and I wonder what Rembrandt would have made of this
before some become distant in the rain
and the cars of others suddenly come to life
with screaming tires, flashing lights
while they talk on their radios
and some run fast down the street.
with concern on some faces
while cars swerve at full speed around a corner.

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Gert Strydom, 10 january 2013

When the yellow sun starts to draw long lines

(after S. J. Pretorius)

When the yellow sun starts to draw long lines
just before it descends over the distant hillocks
the streets of the town is filled with cars
of the great mishmash driving home.
Suntanned with hats covering there heads
I see white car guards taking their belongings,
men who had lost their jobs, now with their world insane
walk with lowered heads with their faces grim
while some stretch their steps much longer.
They had a work at a time
but now are sun burnt with rough hands,
sometimes on welfare of the local church
with their eyes hidden by the edges of their hats
while they dream of a country where jobs are plentiful.

[Reference: “Sonnet – Uit Malvern” (Sonnet – Out of Malvern) by S. J. Pretorius ]

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Gert Strydom, 9 january 2013

Almighty Lord

Almighty God who sets the ways of people
do You see, do You daily notice
how my people do suffer?

Are You aware of the old man begging in the street,
the man that has lost everything in his old age,
who now is suntanned over his bald head,
who does not know how to resist

against a country that has betrayed him,
a country that despises his experience, his qualifications?

Do You notice friends and family
who are murdered on farms,
even in houses and businesses in towns and cities,
those that live as if they are bewitched,
as people caught in and attached to the past.

For them all there are only darkness, while others prosper
and they still wait on Your salvation, while they are extradited.

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Gert Strydom, 9 january 2013

How can I declare?

How can I declare
exactly when I started loving you?
Even if you ask again

I only do know
that you make me very happy,
that I will not allow anybody to stop your loving,

that daily I am falling more in love with you,
that you bring meaning to my life,
that I will leave any other woman for you,

that I am forming unbreakable bonds with you,
that I want to embrace you
and sometimes you do make me perplexed

when I want to generate the same feelings in you,
and my eyes betray my feelings
that I want to cover you in kisses

and I wonder if you are aware of this?

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Gert Strydom, 9 january 2013

Achilles [2]

To some more a god than man
the hero walks in
with greatness depicted
in every move and stride
and thunder reflected
in his determined eyes, but the upper commander
and king of Mycenae insults him,
grabs the maiden Briseis as his own
and the great Achilles
withdraws the Myrmidons
sulking in his tent.

The Trojans encouraged by his absence
advance with a loud clamouring noise
like cranes screaming from up high
before the storming in and bringing death
and destruction to the Greeks
forcing them back in retreat.

Storming into the tent of Achilles
his companion Patroclus
tells Achilles about the Trojans
burning their ships
with flaming arrows
and begs him to use his armour
and to give consent for him
to lead the Myrmidons into battle
to come to the rescue.

Fighting like Achilles
Patroclus and the Myrmidons
are victorious and force
the Trojans back
into their city,
but the Trojan commander
Hector kills Patroclus
in the moment of his glory.

Achilles is filled with grief
and joins the battle
taking the Myrmidons
with determination
and ferocity
edged into every man
move shoulder to shoulder
to the depths of the fight.

Achilles fights in a raging frenzy
pursuing Hector three times
around the walls of Troy
and like a thrashing thunder bolt
kills him
tying Hector with anger
to his war chariot
dragging him around
the walls of Troy
and then to the funeral pyre
of his friend Patroclus
withholding funeral rites from Hector.

The anger of the fierce Achilles abates
and the Trojan king Priam
finds him and begs
Achilles to release his son’s corpse
and the great Achilles
has pity on the enemy king.