Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 15 march 2013

A place in the sun

(in answer to Daleen Enslin-Strydom)
 
There are moments in every day
when the small things
that are happening brings
a sense of belonging
makes my thoughts, my longings stray,
to you and like a child
in faith, in trust
you are my hope, the one
when all other things are gone.
 
Sometimes it’s difficult to find tranquillity
to be the one that you expect me to be
but our love has got wings that overreach
each new tomorrow
and it goes far beyond sorrow and pain
we are no longer just each to each
and something does remain
something that is really great and sublime
as if from the first moment in time
we were created to be together
as if hard wired into our souls
we are to be never alone.
 
From far beyond the sun, stars,
planets and galaxies beyond the know universe
our time and place in the sun was set;
before we had even met
you were destined to be my wife
and I have know that a time will come
as if our being together was written in stone.
 
[Reference: “A place in the sun” by Daleen Enslin-Strydom.]


number of comments: 3 | rating: 4 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 11 march 2013

Another winter (imagism)

Biting coldness grabs me with rain on this winter night -
where I walk along the promenade
and the wind is alive
and grabs on to me and grabs me again
like a impudent child
and bleak-white a lightning bolt crashes down
and I smell the explosion of that intimacy
while the red face of the moon bursts out of the sea,
disappears and are again present,
like a swimming champion
that breaks through the water with breaststroke
and for moments I stand to watch the water
which is black, wild and stormy
like a very angry woman
and I hear the moaning of the wind,
while the stars peer at me through the wind tossed clouds
with strange earnest faces.


number of comments: 3 | rating: 3 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 19 july 2013

Lily of the valley (Novelinee)

With a natural kind of subtle ease
aromatic your small bell-shaped flowers
bloom somewhere among the many trees,
quietly springing up after rain showers
you bring happiness and bliss through fate
with a unmistakeable sweet green scent
luring the nightingale to its mate
before your fragile flowering is spent
as if some angels down your steps descent.


number of comments: 2 | rating: 0 | detail

Gert Strydom

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

Gert Strydom, 28 march 2013

There is a place where everything comes together

There is a place where everything comes together,
where life comes to a kind of crossing point
where joy, pleasure and deep anguish
even every crisis does get an answer,
where the blood of God covers sin,
where man is not being forced to believe
but have got a own choice,
and the selfless love of God does comes free
and here where our earth
by our own choice has gone to tatters,
we that are mortal live like gods
until everything that is living wants to avoid us
and we are never without our own will
but in all of this we do loose God.


number of comments: 2 | rating: 2 | detail

Gert Strydom

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.


number of comments: 2 | rating: 2 | detail

Gert Strydom

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.


number of comments: 2 | rating: 2 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 25 june 2012

You fit perfectly into my life (sonnet)

You fit perfectly into my life
I feel your steps where ever I go,
I even see your reflection in the glass
without it betraying your presence
and the times that we laugh together
now are happening more and more;
as if our humanity waits on each other
fragments of current events stay lingering,
as if you are the light in my life
I search for signs in the Milky Way,
in human recollections and even in memories
to find why you are know, but without explanation
of this connection between us,
that only draws us tighter together.


number of comments: 2 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 8 january 2013

Maybe I come from a time

Maybe I come from a time
where things were better and different
than they are now
and still I keep believing and do trust
that every person deserves an own place in the sun.
 
Even when some of my wife’s family members
have been mowed down by criminals in a robbery
I still want to keep believing
in our country, in our time
some kind of change will come,
 
that people will grant each other a own free existence,
that the Lord God walks at the front of the road
to make it even
and that this is a year of prosperity and hope.


number of comments: 2 | rating: 2 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 6 november 2012

Tonight stars do twinkle (English sonnet)

Tonight stars do twinkle with their glowing light
while the wonders from God’s hand do shine
and some are dim and some are white and bright
as they display a power Godly and divine
 
and from the moment they did begin
every night they do find their way
as Godly beacons to a world of sin
until the very break of day
 
while constantly they do glow
and in the darkness do appear
as if some hidden purpose they do know,
as if to them constantly Godly power is near
 
as they are shining always sparkling
and to onlookers some wonder and joy they do bring


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 6 december 2012

Daybreak

Becoming wide awake at the first light
he lies motionless, watches her
in her tranquil sleep,
where she is right there,
but somewhere away from him.
 
He is far too scared to move,
scared to wake her up
before the set time
and then suddenly her eyes open,
she watches him,
draws him close to the heat of her body.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

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.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 2 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 21 september 2012

How do I tell you?

How do I tell you again and again
about how true my love is,
when continually I miss you when you are gone?
Sometimes love brings healing to pain

and these feelings I cannot stop
when even in sorrow they are present.
How do I tell you again and again
about how true my love is,

about how much I constantly yearn for you,
that our love brings a sparkle to each day
and is far stronger than any hindrance,
that there is more to love than just an oath?
How do I tell you again and again
about how true my love is?


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 16 january 2013

A kind of freedom

Here I want to thank the black government
for their type of freedom that circles out wider,
from a job I have been affirmed and are free from it
and it is not very long
that I am again aware about this freedom thing,
when black robbers drive around in both my cars.
 
Before I can wipe out my eyes the police visit me
while they wander around in my house
without a invitation, or even a warrant
where they set me free of my pellet guns,
my stainless steel Colt .45 signature model pistol
and ELG shotgun without laying a charge.
 
I have to deal with freedom again
when black people cheer in the street
about the soccer world cup,
jumping up and down everywhere around me
while they sing, they assure me of freedom,
but my cellular phone disappears
and the felon that has it is also very happy.
 
At home a stranger rushes upon me
while he points a firearm at my head
to rob me from my possessions,
to set me free from my property
and probably spits AIDS into my face,
says he was promised a land of milk and honey
 
and if you think that here I am only joking
you do not get the real meaning of this poem,
as these things did really happen
and still I am facing this kind of freedom.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 8 january 2013

New Year’s Eve

The year slowly comes with the ticking clock to an end,
while the new year is almost born
when the neighbours drown themselves in liquor,
and afraid of the festive sounds the cat sneaks in again.
 
Soberly we have our own festivities,
while outside thundering explosion on thundering explosion occurs
when the New Year is almost born
and afraid of the festive sounds the cat sneaks in again.
 
Later more meteorites explode
and they hang like stars to the heaven
while the neighbours gather around a barrel of wine,
and afraid of the festive sounds the cat sneaks in again.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 4 july 2012

An ibis screeched outside in the garden

An ibis screeched outside 
in the garden
suddenly slapped its big bronze-brown wings
and touched 
by the frenzy you turned around,
without a word
pulled me deep into your arms,
suddenly you covered my face with kisses.
 


number of comments: 1 | rating: 2 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 3 july 2012

While I am still far over the hill

When life takes me
over ghastly paths with a precipice
I want to stray into the darkness

but still your heaven is stretched out blue over me,
with the sun burning intense warm white
and I look at the moon where it’s high,
or low in a variety of
yellow, white and even silver colours

and when the wind rises cruelly to devour me
You are always there with arms wide open,
like a father coming to the rescue,
who is already running
while I am still far over the hill.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 21 january 2013

A picture lingers with me

A picture lingers with me
of God hanging as a man on the cross,
of Mary standing dumfounded nearby
and mere humans mocking Him about His powerlessness
when the bright day fled into the night,
when God himself paid a sacrifice for the human existence
and this scene remains in my mind
and to me its reality, not just only a very old story.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 21 january 2013

There is a kind of love that I do not really understand

There is a kind of love that I do not really understand
and when my thoughts go to the bible story
then I wonder in my own sinful human nature
how an almighty God comes to a word of fear?
Through the ages the hammer blows keeps ringing
as man did crucify the God of the universe
who did not keep them that murdered Him accountable
as darkness and sorrow came over the earth
and when even an idol worshiper out of the Roman legion
realised that it was the son of God and reconciled himself with the Lord
a price was paid in unmentionable love
and this pain and sorrow keeps lingering in my thoughts.
When the world looks threatening and terrible
I still see His eyes looking in love from the cross.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 8 january 2013

Its as if my country is on a different planet

It’s as if my country
is now somewhere on a different planet
and early in the morning I see the poor black man
where he sits with hair like strings
covered in a blanket
against the wall of the ABSA bank
where people at eight o’clock
stand in a very long queue
while they wait upon the bank to open
 
and the friendly police captain
(who sometimes wear plain clothes)
and has a shining bald head
greets me and he wants to know
where my motorcycle is?
 
There are a group of jobless white people
twisting tobacco from cigarette buts
where they beg for leftover food
at DJ’s restaurant
 
and I wonder what is happening to this country
while a minibus taxi
stops in the middle of the road
and drops people in the traffic
 
and the traffic light is green
when I cross to the shopping centre
and the minibus taxi ignores the red light
and barely misses me.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 16 july 2012

Last

When the light dims from my eyes
there will be no fatherly hand
to hold on to mine
 
to feel the last pulse
of life beating
while the darkness claims me
 
and when I disappear from life,
glide into death
You are the Father
that I find on the other side.
 
[References:  “Erato” by Anyte.  Laaste (Last) by Riana Scheepers.]


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 17 july 2012

Progress

Dress your legs with nylons
with cat eyes in between
glowing next to huge pylons
never serene, just weirdly obscene

and destroy every patch of green
with shopping malls and every chain store
disrupting how towns and cities had been
and plant power stations by the score

and be a age totally foul
with scores of minibus taxi’s asunder
acting as if without a soul
to kill and to plunder

with the monsters bellowing
smoke like gallows, energizing electrical strings.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 26 november 2012

Arrival

With a tingle that rushes in my blood
you run up to me with a great smile
when I arrive from the aeroplane
and again I am astonished by your beauty
when a crowd of people move around us
and we embrace and are lost in each other.
 
Moments stretch out almost eternally
when we disrupt the movement of other passengers,
when pairs of eyes stare deeply into each others
as if we see each other for the first time,
when time keeps lingers as if it does not exist
and we embrace and are lost in each other.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 1 august 2012

When suddenly you came along (Trijan refrain)

When suddenly you came along
my whole life had changed,
unexpected my love was strong
life was rearranged 
and butterflies dart everywhere
while some bees visit here and there
and butterflies
and butterflies
turn my stomach, I am without care.
 
When suddenly you came along
I did not know your name,
if to somebody you do belong,
but somehow our love came
your face had grace, your eyes did gleam
and your voice was like a stream
your face had grace,
your face had grace,
and you leapt into each dream.
 
When suddenly you came along
you were most beautiful
and with you I could not be wrong,
as my whole heart was full
of our great love on each new day
and my heart was happy and gay
of our great love,
of our great love
that not a thing could take away.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 13 december 2012

When daylight comes

When daylight comes the clouds draw open
while the night takes all of her shining stuff,
the rays of the sun walk through the heaven,
stars shatter to pieces beyond the blue
and when the moon gleams golden after the twilight,
become much bigger as if it gets nearer
and climbs with a bow over the horizon
then the night clothes herself in her satin black cloak again,
while stars appears like white falling pieces of hail.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 26 november 2012

Let us love nobly (Stave stanza sestets)

May we learn to love as deep and as true,
that not a thing can remove me from you
that all our words and actions only prove
that we both do truly know how to love,
when in old age we are, our days do pass,
in our love, everything might be as it was.

May we love each other with no decay,
that each tomorrow be better than today
and when all of life has run its own course,
in death there will be sleep and no divorce
and when we stand before our God at last
in our love, everything might be as it was.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 19 december 2012

With eyes sparkling green and gold

With eyes sparkling green and gold
you did look at me
and for moments we looked at each other.
 
Out of the branches of the old pepper tree
doves shyly peered at us
and the wind rustled through your hair.
 
I wanted to show you the flowering irises,
wanted you to smell the jasmine
but we were caught in each other.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 20 december 2012

There is loneliness in the autumn wind

There is loneliness in the autumn wind,
it whirls leaves and clouds of dust up
when by accident you walk into me
and we stumble and fall over each other
when our eyes meet
and suddenly you smile at me.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 24 december 2012

This is how Christmas is

With cupped hands I see him standing at a traffic light
and around him lines of cars drive past,
while people go on with their own lives
and some drive faster,
others cut in before others
and in silence he stands there without a single word.
 
At a shop window he sometimes stand with wide eyes,
where new clothes, very expense toys
are almost touchable near to him
and he does wish on this Christmas
to get something special
 
and his clothes are in tatters,
his black skin almost grey from hunger,
impatient cars continually blow on their horns
and he dreams about a large and pretty house
where the most delicious smells linger in the kitchen
and sometimes people look at him with pity,
 
while he longs for a very special kind of place
where a lost son is always welcome,
where God Himself stand welcoming with arms open wide,
where you can smell the fragrance of roasted lamb
and nobody does experience grief, are hunger or cold.
 
An old lady sincerely takes pity on him,
pushes a hot loaf of bread and a bottle of milk in his hands,
while others avoid him
and he does miss his father and mother who are both dead,
thinks this is how Christmas is
and suddenly his teeth glitter in a smile.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom, 18 july 2012

Landmine

When the Buffel troop-carrier detonates a landmine
we see dark dots moving in the bush
and I break loose with the light machinegun
that the empty burning-hot caps hit against me
 
and as long as there is movement
on the other side of the dry riverbed
our fire is drawn
until everything is motionless.
 
With the smell of gunpowder hanging around us,
a skimpy goat-herdsman
crawls out from behind a giant ant hill
and cries about his dead goats.


number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail


10 - 30 - 100  



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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