Gert Strydom, 12 august 2014
(in answer to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
There is nothing that can stop the sands of time
and although many lives may be sublime,
destiny and death leave marks on each day
while events occur without reason or rhyme.
If lives of great men are footprints in the sand
why is it then so very difficult to understand
that some leaders do lead men to disaster
although they do seem heroic and grand?
In our own kind of reality life is not what it seem,
as much like in a very strange kind of dream
things, circumstances and events are ever changing
and sometimes does not turnout as we do deem.
Even when we are achieving and pursuing,
events, words and acts may be our own undoing
while for justice we might forever wait,
without being able to do a single thing.
Yet in faith, if we do trust in God
even in havoc He is wherever we trod,
from the day of birth and celebration,
even beyond our funeral, the final sod.
[Reference: “A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.]
Gert Strydom, 12 august 2014
Nothing could stop the enchantment
when I read the first signs of love in your eyes,
when there was something fragile and brittle in you,
when your hand laid soft and warm in mine
and I at that moment could say no words
when I found a sudden bond
and were caught by the image of blood and flesh.
Satish Verma, 12 august 2014
Finally I found myself.
This book of life
had never been the same.
Who had invented God
from the pilfered version?
I say my prayers aggrieved.
Again solitude murmurs.
This twisted world
indulging in phallic worship.
The huge torch in your hand
lights the ugly feet
leaving footprints on dignity.
Blood bath of humming-birds
on the sand dunes of silence.
Children are frightened.
Hungrily I follow the scent.
Satish Verma
Gert Strydom, 11 august 2014
I watch the early morning blood-red rays,
its two more days before another kiss
while I am missing her in many ways
am yearning to see her, for pure bliss
to feel her soft curls like some times before
her golden soft hair now coloured dark,
each day I love and miss her even more;
on the depth of love I can just remark,
about its significance its joyful spark.
Gert Strydom, 11 august 2014
(in answer to N.P. van Wyk Louw)
The tar road lays open under the burning sun
and the house is far over the hillocks
my feet are sore while the tar glows
with the sky stretching out blue to all sides.
As a young child there is meaning
in thing what other people might miss
and my hair at times do flutter in the wind
but about flowers I do have some knowledge.
In a short sleeve shirt and pants as a mere child
I am blinded by the bright hot light
as if Your summer hangs great over me
while I am trying to find my way home
and it’s as if I am already longing
for Your safety and nothing does frighten me.
[Reference: “Dit brand my voete” (It burns my feet) by N.P. van Wyk Louw.]
Satish Verma, 11 august 2014
Your unclaimers
will miss the date
with a lunatic world,
what might
you need
for the final journey.
Don’t stop at midway
to watch the history
taking a turn.
A crispy sun
was waiting in meadows
to welcome bonhomie,
freedom of unlacing
the foes. The flesh sends
upright signals
for releasing the soul.
The incredible smell of bleed
will hang on the solid stings of space.
Satish Verma
Insatiable Sohail, 10 august 2014
I didn’t fall in love with you.
I walked into love with you,
with my eyes wide open,
choosing to take
every step along the way.
I do believe in fate and destiny
but I also believe
we are only fated
to do the things
that we’d choose anyway.
And I’d choose you;
in a hundred lifetimes,
in a hundred worlds,
in any version of reality.
I’d find you
and I’d choose you.
Satish Verma, 10 august 2014
There was once a worried face
who unbuttoned
a white fire
in a pink hole
of an eye to lift
the fingerprints
of depression. It was
a closed-circuit
for a galaxy of
hot flares and flying hurts.
You must not cross
the threshold
of silence, abducting
the blood stained
words.
Come back to your home
O grief,
the fog is thickening outside.
Satish Verma
Michel Galiana, 9 august 2014
1. To all the women that you love
For a while - they don't know thereof -
This ditty is a tribute paid;
To passers-by you hardly know
Whom the whims of destiny draw
Along streams you shall never wade.
2. To the girl at the window pane
Who peeps and disappears again,
A lovable but fleeting sight
Of a graceful and slim body
Outlined surreptitiously
That makes you feel gay and look bright.
3. To the fair fellow traveller
Whose bright eyes, a charming picture,
Will make time go by and clock stand
You did understand her, maybe,
And yet you let her go freely
And did not even touch her hand.
4. To the woman in wedding bonds
With one who by no way responds
To her hopes and expectation;
And she gave, a useless nonsense,
To her despair shy utterance
And hinted at her frustration.
5. Ye, endearing glimpses caught,
Short-lived hopes with forgetting fraught,
You shall not survive tomorrow!
If only happiness occurs,
It wipes out or at least it blurs
The transient spells of sorrow.
6. But if you have wasted your life
You think, at the end of the strife,
Of happiness that grows and dies;
Of the kisses you durst not claim,
Of the hearts somewhere still aflame,
Of the never forgotten eyes.
7. And in evenings of weariness
You fill up your lonely recess
With phantoms from your memories,
And you bemoan the absent lips
Of those passers-by on their trips
You failed to stop. These fair fairies!
(Translated from the French poem by Antoine Pol)
Gert Strydom, 8 august 2014
(in answer to Walt Whitman)
Captain, I see You steady at the helm,
steering the ship of my life through stormy seas,
and with You at the tiller I have no fear,
yet Your hands and feet carry marks
telling of the cruelty that mere men
had bestowed upon You
and by the glowing stars I reckon
that Your course is ever true
to that uncharted shore beyond the blue
over billowing, rushing waves
that are endlessly breaking
the ship never wavers and never falters
and on the wind, bells are ringing
indicating that the shore must be near
while steadily You still steer.
[Reference: O Captain! My Captain! By Walt Whitman.]
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