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Poetry

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

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Gert Strydom, 15 december 2011

There is the smell of rain in the air (Novelinee)

There is the smell of fresh rain in the air,
the perfume of jasmine on the breeze
while you smile at me, beautiful and fair
and doves coo in the twilight in the trees.
Outside the rain pours like some babbling springs
that runs anywhere in small meandering streams,
our life and love is full of little things,
of bliss, joy and care, deeper than it seems
while you affect even my secret dreams.

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Gert Strydom, 15 december 2011

Radiating you smile at me

Radiating you smile at me
as women from the age old existence,
cobalt blue it looks like a wide open day,
slowly but surely you climb into my heart.
Our eyes catch each other human upon human,
between things suddenly become silent
unspoken between us lies a wish
as we together do not waste any more time
love becomes between us a single kind of thing.

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Gert Strydom, 14 december 2011

The first dragon (sestina)

They went to find a thing that belched fire
a killer, a dragon what could it be?
To defeat it, to win they did aspire,
to set the people from its terror free,
it was huge as it could never tire
and where it went, there was only agony.

Those brave humble men were of all fear free
were like a mighty force that did aspire
to make men godly, as t no man should be,
to snatch from that beast it’s devouring fire
and to bring to it just death and agony
and in this quest they would not tire.

Yet all of the great brave men do aspire
to in the unknown find knowledge free
to test skill against the beast and to tire
to measure if plans full of follies be,
later to chance, to fight using its fire,
even in using if there is only agony.

They wanted the truth of its power to be free,
free to use in destruction like the strange fire
that came from heaven that fell in agony
that has the capacity to even gods to tire,
they constructed weapons that should be
the main goal to which warriors do aspire.

It may that other men could easily tire
of this overwhelming quest whose worth could be
not lovely high things, to which to aspire,
nor a guiding light sparkling over the free
but quenching of life by its terrible fire,
with it only acts of death and agony.

Then like destiny, which doomed in agony,
like the first discoverers of divine secret fire,
the beast would rise and in raving anger be
really ruthless and from tricks it will not tire,
its intimate knowledge would not come free,
to seek power in which men as fools aspire.

In pride anything to be, finishing foes with fire
while endlessly to be free they do aspire
while men tire in wars only breeding agony.

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Gert Strydom, 14 december 2011

In some fields of grass under the hills (sestina)

This afternoon the peaks throw a big shade
with the black cliffs shining up on the hills,
while we lay together in the long grass,
I look in your eyes that are amber-green
while under my head there is a small stone
and you smile at me like the prettiest lady.

I had once known another charming lady;
that part of my life is now left in shade,
bad churchmen were casting stone upon stone,
while I had to flee from them to the hills
to pastures were everything is green
to find the Lord in divine fields of grass.

Under your head there is a crown of grass
and your mother is a gracious, kind lady,
around us everything is lovely green
while we are still resting in the cool shade,
we are softly chatting about life’s hills,
about walls of very hard granite stone.

Your eyes are much brighter than emerald stone
while all of your words are softer than grass,
reaching higher and beyond all the hills,
the high mountain which is dangerous lady,
while from our pain nothing gives any shade,
nowhere is a place of rest that is green.

Your summer dress is lovely, is bright green,
suddenly all our ails have turned to stone
I follow you further; see your small shade,
I am seen as one that woos any lady,
we walk past some flowers growing in grass,
climbing up higher into the foothills.

Bright streams are splashing down some of the hills,
with water transparent, sometimes cold and green,
love and lust burns like in a youthful lady
while I at that moment feel cold as stone,
we notice a deer feeding on lone grass
while our garments lie under a tree’s shade.

Far into the hills you want love till dusk’s shade,
where you peep like some green moss from the grass,
are tossing me with a stone like no lady.

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Gert Strydom, 13 december 2011

To me His presence is a mystery (Collins Sestet)

When havoc and disaster came my way
upon a tranquil sunny summer day
I had blamed God for being absent,
of my accusation He was innocent;
He is present in a world of iniquity
and to me His presence is a mystery.

I looked for God, Him I did not see,
His image, His presence eluded me
but I found His tracks everywhere,
in everything lovely His hand was there;
He is present in a world of iniquity
and to me His presence is a mystery

There was great beauty in a lone thrush
singing all the world to a holy hush,
the pattering rain brought along new birth
while He continually blessed the earth;
He is present in a world of iniquity
and to me His presence is a mystery.

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Gert Strydom, 13 december 2011

If there is something more (in answer to Edgar Allan Poe) (Novelinee sequence)

If all we are, see or may deem to be
is smashed like drops of sand on the beach
while in nothing there is constancy,
continually for something more we reach.
where we play but trifle roles that are set,
if all of life is just but on a stage
then all things are just on chance a mere bet,
where destiny strikes with a sudden rage,
then for survival man does a war wage.

If to survive man does a war wage,
then any happiness is swept away,
man yearns for the divine in every age
while actually nothing is set to stay,
while we are just actors in a kind of dream
but I know and feel life is more than this,
that things come to much more than they do seem,
where we find meaning in the way life is,
with something more in every sweet kiss

If there is something more in a sweet kiss
than chemistry and passionate feeling,
if we find happiness in human bliss,
are not set to be constant away reeling,
then somehow something lives on, we are save,
even if but mere chance still does insist,
save from oblivion’s decimating wave,
even if we see nothing, as a atheist,
as in the hand of God man does exist.

[Reference: “A dream within a dream” by Edgar Allan Poe.]

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Gert Strydom, 13 december 2011

May God forever be praised

(after Abraham Ibn Ezra)

May God forever be praised,
although we do not comprehend
the science flowing from His hands,
that His words have the power to materialize

how He created everything
that we know about,
or still have got to discover
and although He is love

we do not really understand
or at times even know Him
and whoever see Him in His works
cannot deny that He exists

while everything in nature
to His glory continually sings,
of the great power
of his selfless love.

[Reference: “God Supreme” by Abraham Ibn Ezra.]

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Gert Strydom, 12 december 2011

Insertion (in answer to Pieter Strauss)

With the moon that is tonight missing
as if it has strayed somewhere
and the stars dimmed out
by dark clouds
and just now and then
a bolt of thunder
that hits bleak white downwards
I am let free from very high
and are almost a machine
that breathes through a mask
where a tank is attached on to my back
and from higher than the horizon
and with every enemy guard, guard-tower
radar station primed
against foreign penetration, intrusion
I fall hyper-quick, as if I am passing time
while life, the whole world
comes to a standstill around me
until I am mechanically reminded
that the ground is almost too near
and the parachute jerks open,
pulling me back into time
with the ground almost touching my boots.

[“1. rendezvous” by Pieter Strauss.]

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Gert Strydom, 12 december 2011

Situation report on a reconnaissance expedition

We went to reconnoitre enemy positions
being dropped from very high by parachute
in a dark moonless night
and I couldn’t even see the stars
as I came down to the ground
and there wasn’t any sign of light
up to the horizon.

After landing we grouped together
following a compass
walked miles and miles north east
saw the rising sun
walked right through the day

and did not find any enemy,
found no activity or any sign of man
crossed some small rivers marked on the map

saw a lot of crocodiles, some hippopotamuses
came across a lion kill
where they lay snarling at us
and as hiking through the bush go
this was excellent
as we saw almost all of the big five first hand,
while moving between them
and came back alive
but in a strategic military sense
it was of no value.

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Gert Strydom, 12 december 2011

Enemy tracks (Quatern)

There are many tracks on the ground,
enemies could be anywhere,
the spoor does the tracker astound,
he looks carefully here and there.

To me the tracks look all the same,
there are many tracks on the ground,
I do not know from where they came,
how enemies are to be found.

To the tracker it is renowned,
the way that it is set, its line
there are many tracks on the ground,
to me looking almost as mine.

We drink water under a tree
find a booby trap tightly bound
that almost is disposing me,
there are many tracks on the ground.