Satish Verma, 29 april 2016
Anxiety was touching the mime
I cannot hold a reality.
We were playing with each other.
The creation and hunger of living
takes you to unknown fields
I am, what I am not.
Always bluffing, puffing on the road,
counting the milestones
in reverse osmosis,
feeling proud of mighty mistakes,
talking to faltered ego,
going against the sun.
My climate merges with hot desert
A story reappears again and again
like a dried skeleton in sands.
How long I will run
chased by planetary fears?
Barbs pierce the tender zones
I see my own demise,
body floating like a flower on lake.
colin st. leger lewis, 29 april 2016
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What Do Morals Do - Poem by colin st. leger lewis
And when the sacred winds had slept
a milder breeze arose
sensuous feelings genuflect
fatigue now indisposed
While gently they may speculate
on fears the night might hold-
right now we bask and gravitate
to nature's soothing soul
If Nature reigns preeminent
then what do morals do
but form the psychic regiment
enhancing tangible views?
Now if morals provide the detriment
of cruel unbelieving fools
then God I'm sure is evident
on crowns where there're no jewels.
Gert Strydom, 28 april 2016
I see him doing carpentry,
smoothing a piece of hard wood with a plane,
clamped on a big old vice
before cutting it, sawing it off
to the right length
and there were fire in his big blue eyes,
a burning intensity and integrity in them.
The smell of glue and sawn wood
tell tale from his tool shed,
with always a instrument,
sometimes a pencil, a hammer, a saw
in his big calloused hands
and a tenderness, compassion, love
in the eyes that looked at me.
He was a man who drew up plans
and build a big church
with his bare hands,
without charging for his labour
who knew the exact amount
of bricks, bags of cement,
lintels and whatever
went into a building or house
just by looking at the blueprints
and who could immediately
tell you the cost
almost to the last cent
and his workplace was tidy,
with everything in its place
and my grandpa was gigantic to me,
until one day
that a huge door
at a building came loose
and fell on him thundering
cutting his internal organs,
causing internal bleeding
and at the time
the doctors could do nothing for him
and he was an educated man
who swore that no child of him,
would have to be an artisan,
would have to work with his hands
like himself,
who wanted each and everyone
to get a proper education
at university
and have a decent job
and a great life.
Satish Verma, 28 april 2016
You were sitting on a honeycomb
I wanted a life
without stink or stain.
Intently staring at every celebration
listening to every sound,
and warding off the hissing reptiles
near my ladder.
Nature, I do not want to fight with.
Grief brings psoriasis,
the eternal itch and restlessness.
I scream at every red patch,
my unreadable pain forgets the date.
Mutism was not the answer
to protect the purity of tongue.
Silence was not a golden word.
Without becoming hoarse
one can shout to tell the dimensions.
Gert Strydom, 27 april 2016
When the two of us met
there was happiness and tears
and it was if our destiny was set
for many great coming years
sparkling were our eyes and we were bold
with a strange kind of fire in every kiss
and our feelings were new and old
in a unknown kind of bliss
the brightness of the morning
touched the specks of dew on your brow
when sadness came without warning
of the moments that we do feel now
when our true feelings are unspoken
and day upon day suddenly came
where apart in longing we are broken
and for weeks the days remained the same
while time with you I do covet
and the sound of your voice is still in my ear
while the feeling between us I cannot forget
and to me you are still dear.
Satish Verma, 27 april 2016
I woke up clutching the dreams
in deluge of tears.
Night had a brackish taste,
the other side of moon was dark.
One by one the stars were dying
Ideas were no longer candles in gale.
The final thought of liberty demanded
a tribute to partners in revolt.
I wanted a sunlit corner
in the blighted sky of hopes.
Instead of scorched impulse of a mob
injured truth, walking alone.
Give me a bitter fruit of certainty.
I don’t want to loose myself in fogs.
The truth must meet the lie-
alone, in woods of craft.
Gert Strydom, 26 april 2016
Forever the wandering ghost
of that meddling interfering missionary John Phillip
is haunting, and he is bellicose
and in the highest ears he again lets his words slip
and once again he acts the same
as at Slagtersnek where rebellious farmers did hang high
(were hanged again when the ropes broke)
and once more he slanders the Afrikaner’s name,
while innocently he tells lie upon lie
and here and there a funny joke.
Satish Verma, 26 april 2016
Beyond the gaze there is a time zone
of rumored agitation
when you cannot sleep.
You open your eyes quietly to complain.
The caretaker has prepared the shroud.
Smoke is rising on the hills.
No body walks with you,
it is a lone journey, where
centuries throw the dust on your hallowed gifts.
The pyramid of signs, symbols, signatures,
disappear in penultimate flare.
Time to leave the waiting room.
The resurrection will take place now;
of fear; of despair; of foot steps in dark.
I will hear them, holding my breath.
Landscape will change into valley of tears.
Gert Strydom, 25 april 2016
On Pretoria (Italian sonnet)
I have not seen a city more fair
than Pretoria during spring
when on every street Jacaranda trees are flowering
and the scent of those flowers is in the air
and you might not find this kind of beauty anywhere
but in Pretoria where the faces of people are smiling
and to live in Pretoria during this time feels exciting
when any other city seems stripped, naked and bare.
From the outer hillocks history does its marvels display
where monuments rise as a token to existence
and churches, hero acres, offices and theaters lie
in the hazy beauty of the new day
while the people live their lives with persistence
as the days leap into years as they pass by.
Oor Pretoria
Ek het nie ‘n mooier stad gesien
as Pretoria in die lente
as Jakaranda bome op elke straat blom
en die geur van daardie blomme in die lug is
en dié soort prag sal mens nêrens anders vind
as in Pretoria met glimlagte op haar mense se gesigte
en om gedurende dié tyd in Pretoria te wees maak mens opgewonde
as elke ander stad gestroop, naak en leeg lyk.
Van die buitenste heuwels vertoon die geskiedenis wonders
waar monumente rys as ‘n teken van bestaan
en kerke, heldeakkers, kantore en teaters lê
in die wasige skoonheid van die nuwe dag
waar mense leef met volharding
as dae na jare spring soos wat hulle verby gaan.
Satish Verma, 25 april 2016
Name was more beautiful than the face.
It was charisma of night.
A dream without the eyes.
Laughing skull on the road
opens a wound,
and dying footprints were neither consenting
nor refusing.
A faticity clamps the flow of blood,
I was counting the stitches,
somewhere the pain was reappearing.
Interpersonal hate had a story to tell:
greed, anger and bullets.
The legs were chopped off from truth.
He was not faithful to sun.
In my heart lies a trapped river.
Its history is old, its water was humble.
Uncontaminated was the knock on the door
to a melting of white snow.
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