Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 11 july 2014

Ballade of the hours of darkness

(after N.P. van Wyk Louw)
 
Our love did wither like a flower,
with the morning-light came silently to an end
and this morning we both are without words
as we do not really know each other.
 
Where we had been deeply involved in bodily pleasure
we are estranged and blunt with each other
and the emotions that were overwhelming
they now are stripped and bankrupt from love
 
and last night desire did burn in us both
with a tingling in your hand
when it was soft and vulnerable in mine
and your smile was luring and forward,
 
your eyes the brightest blue
and when I did hold you closer
there had been something that I could not place
when you spilled wine on my shirt
 
and now that it’s the new morning
you are much prettier than in the darkness of last night
but that which had been between us is past
and now carries no meaning
 
and only the smells of love and whiskey does linger
where the sun radiates brightly into your kitchen
and with you here in your own home
I feel redundant, unwelcome and lost.
 
Our love with the morning-light came silently to an end,
did wither like a flower,
as we do not really know each other
and this morning we both are without words.
 
 
[Reference: “Ballade van die nagtelike ure” (Ballade of the nightly hours) by N.P. van Wyk Louw.]


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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 11 july 2014

To you there’s an amazing kind of grace (Novelinee)

To you there’s an amazing kind of grace,
as your eyes shines radiant, words they do tell
as the hot sunshine falls across your face,
you are happy, are being loved well,
suddenly you look up and smile at me
are brightening a very lovely day,
you shake your silky hair, let them go free
in strings of colour, in lovely disarray
and I love you, I wonder if I may…


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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 11 july 2014

Sennacherib

Sennacherib king of Assyria
send a message to Hezekiah king of Judah saying:

“Do not be deceived by your god
when he assures you that Jerusalem
will not fall to me.

Haven’t you heard
what the kings of Assyria
have done to all the other countries
and how we have destroyed them completely?

Who will deliver you now? Did the gods
of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, Hamath, Eden,
Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena or Ivvah protect them?”

In humility Hezekiah went to the temple
and prayed:

“Lord, enthroned among cherubim
You are alone the living God
who rules over all kingdoms
and have created both heaven and earth

and it’s true that the kings of Assyria
have destroyed the gods of these nations
and have conquered these nations and their lands,
but their gods were only wood and stone
created by man.

Please deliver us from king Sennacherib
that the entire world may know
that You alone are God.”

Then the prophet Isaiah
send king Hezekiah a message:

“The Lord says that Sennacherib
has blasphemed and insulted Him
and has lifted his voice in pride saying

that with his chariots
he has ascended mountains,
that he has drawn water from foreign wells,
has dried up the streams of Egypt

but I know where he lives
and when he comes and goes
and he has raised his voice against me.

I will make him return from where he came
for out of Jerusalem My remnant will come
and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors will come

and he will not enter this city,
even shoot an arrow here
or come against it with shields
or build a siege ramp
and I will defend this city.”

During that night the Angel of God
waged war against the army of Assyria
killing a hundred and eighty-five thousand men

and Sennacherib withdraw to Nineveh
where he was killed by his own sons
while worshipping his god Nisroch.


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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 10 july 2014

The Flying Dutchman

With age-old masts creaking,
cursed by Godly wrath,
just before the worst storms in the Cape do begin
an ancient ship is sighted sailing
as a token to break the scorn and blasphemy of man
or so the legend says, with a skeleton at the wheel
of the Flying Dutchman, full of ungodly sailors
who forever glare at each other with thoughts of revenge,
as a spectre strait out of the portals of hell
and if I do remember correctly
there is no salvation or sleep for anyone aboard
and everything turns around the love of a woman
that lived in the most beautiful Cape
and now I wonder how long that ship is still going to sail
as every now and then some seamen do notice it.


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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 10 july 2014

Catharine

(after I.D. du Plessis)
 
Catharine of the Western Cape
was caught by passion last night
and she knows that nobody will understand
and this morning she is sleeping late.
Love and the deed of it take many forms for her
and at night the men whistle
when ever she goes into the dark streets
when the old church bell rings off the late evening
and her bitter work does begin
and sometimes she gets a chance
to eat out like a beautiful woman can
but mostly she acts out her age-old trade,
are smiling, impudently forward and sometimes scared
while she longs for better days and another life.
 
[Reference: “Katrina” by I.D. du Plessis.]


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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 10 july 2014

Where trees stand in the winter night as skeletons

Where trees stand in the winter night as skeletons
out of the clouds of fog the silver-white moon rises
and in the distance a dog is barking,
when other sounds come that no man can understand,
 
lightning-bolts flash down without end
and as a mere man
I see the omnipotence out of the hand of God
 
when the windows rattle as if something wants to come in
and I am astounded by the great scene
when the first drops begin to fall
and rain pours down over the dry earth.


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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 10 july 2014

Sometimes I yearn for you to be near

Sometimes I yearn for you to be near
and I want to find a time, maybe turn the years back
to draw you into my arms,
to look at you with the knowledge
that you are mine
and I wonder about the thoughts
that constantly goes through your mind,
about the things that make you both sad and glad
and somewhere in the distance a star is beckoning
as if it’s a silent guiding light in the darkness of the night


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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 9 july 2014

If you think of me sadly

If you think of me sadly when we part,
when there is loneliness in the heart
then remember how very happy
our days together had been.
 
Remember me fondly
as your own darling and counterpart,
how my face looked
when a smile would start
and on a bright sunny day
I will return
 
and heartache and loss
at times is only a condition of the mind
and on another day you will find
the sky to be bright and blue
when I come back to you
 
and now while you still do care
we have many happy moments to share
and everything that we say and do
stick to our souls like the strongest glue.


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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 9 july 2014

I wonder in what season

God in His great grace
has made each and every season
with its own purpose and place
 
and I wonder in what season did life
with its intricacies begin,
was it in the hot summer sun
or during the winter chill?


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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 9 july 2014

A snow-white dove

A snow-white dove
flies into the room’s window
and I remember how it had been,
how the crowd listened to the voice of God
 
at the stream where John was baptising,
how that dove descended,
the disciples stumbling around somewhat confused,
the Son of God who somewhat naked
 
stretched out His hands above His head to His Father,
the peace that suddenly came to the hearts of everyone,
the onlookers that did cover their eyes to the bright light
and how everybody looked and stared somewhat astonished at Him
 
and still I do wonder why God himself
came to perish for everyone on this planet?


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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,

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