Gert Strydom, 22 july 2014
In the middle of the week you did come to me
the sheen of your hair, your glowing eyes
sparkled like a sudden bolt of thunder
and for moments I was speechless.
You did astonish me with your beauty
and suddenly you jumped into my heart,
caught me unaware like a spectre
in the early years of old age,
you were suddenly in my arms,
volcanoes of a life lived wanted to burst out
and my heart did not want to calm down
in joyful amuck I was happy
and suddenly my life was new and fresh
and all of my sorrows were gone.
Gert Strydom, 22 july 2014
How many times
I have looked at the stars
as if they can lead me
straight to You,
as if with their help
I could find my way
and still untouchable
they hang above me
but Your name stays on my lips
as if the power of it
can catch everything around me
and to You my life is bound.
Gert Strydom, 21 july 2014
(in answer to A. E. Housman)
When envoys of God were visiting Lot
a crowd wanted to rape them in that night,
but they were struck by blindness and could not.
On the very next morning at first light
when Sodom’s destruction was imminent,
Lot and his family hesitated
while the very great danger was present.
The angels grabbed them where they waited
with words to flee, not to look back, to stop
on the plain or they would be swept away
and to hurry until they were on top
of the far of high hills, but on the way
Lot’s wife halted on that plain to stop
to the destruction, her glance did then stray.
[Reference: “XXXV” “Half-way, for one commandment broken” by A. E. Housman.}
Gert Strydom, 21 july 2014
On the quay I am alone
while fishing-boats sail into the green sea,
I hide behind my sunglasses
and some boats skip over the breakers
before they reach the calmer water
of the deep ocean,
seagulls hang screaming against the wind
as if they are a part of it
and the sails of wind-surfers flutter
while anxious some try to stay on top
when the wind changes direction
and are jerking them suddenly.
On the beach on the opposite side
a girl screams
as if she is barely alarmed
while her boy-friend sprays water over her
and a few lovely women
peep from behind their sunglasses at me
and I see the sun baking
their golden bodies,
high up cape gannets fly almost up to heaven
and I follow the sun
that is drawing lower over the dome of the sky
and try to see further
than where earth draws its horizon
and wonder what God does see
in humanity
where billions of us
teem like small ants
and everyone does lead a life,
gets hurt and do dream dreams.
Gert Strydom, 21 july 2014
In the moonlight False Bay looks untouched
still the sweeping water is ice-cold,
in love we are obsessed with each other
and at times our feelings feel age old
as if in our own self-preservation
we do continually reincarnate, know each other
in a great and magical simplicity
(something that I cannot properly write down)
maybe out of a mythological recipe
in which our true love does recreate itself.
Gert Strydom, 18 july 2014
Just like doctors did do at a time
he visits people,
sometimes into the late hours of the night
and although he serves the word of God
he tries to help them
to get their marriages happy again,
he hear the complaints and sorrows
of people that have lost children, companions
and even parents to death
tries to find answers
where none does exist, in the struggle of man,
he searches for deeper meaning
and when he stands behind the pulpit
and rises his eyes to heaven
a person does hear, does experience
the fragile human being
which that old man has become
and you are aware of his brokenness
until the voice of God
starts speaking right through him
when he leaves people
in the tranquillity of God’s eternal and wide love.
Gert Strydom, 17 july 2014
When the moon rises in the concrete jungle
she notices how bare, how stripped
the park is in the early winter
and she becomes aware of the chill
that does not only pierce through her body
but is freezing her whole life.
She notices the moon that is white
as if the rays of it
are unreachable and bleak
and in the distance there are lights
that is beckoning all of the time
that twinkle
like the decorations of a Christmas tree,
which reminds her of a world
where people gambol and cavort,
reminds her of the tinned pleasure
that only lasts for moments
and the price of it
comes with the pain of AIDS,
does penetrate with painful claws
for days, weeks, months and sometimes years
bringing you staggering
to where you can go no further.
Gert Strydom, 17 july 2014
On the highway a female traffic cop pulls me off
and with a book and pen
she trots to the window
which glides electrically into the frame.
I was careful
not to exceed the speed limit
and that little minx dressed in kaki
tests everything.
Suddenly she wants to get into the seat next to me
and wants me to open the bonnet
which makes me angry
as this sport-car belongs to me
and I do determine
who observes the inner works of it,
who rides in my car
and no speed-cop does seduce me.
On the highway a female traffic cop pulls me off
On the highway a female traffic cop pulls me off
and with a book and pen
she trots to the window
which glides electrically into the frame.
I was careful
not to exceed the speed limit
and that little minx dressed in kaki
tests everything.
Suddenly she wants to get into the seat next to me
and wants me to open the bonnet
which makes me angry
as this sport-car belongs to me
and I do determine
who observes the inner works of it,
who rides in my car
and no speed-cop does seduce me.
Gert Strydom, 17 july 2014
At the first time that I had seen her,
she did something to me
with her big eyes glancing into mine
and she being so streamlined
that the revs of my heart jumped
and I did know
that I was in love
and I thought about a way
to make her mine.
Gert Strydom, 17 july 2014
Sometimes I wonder why man
yearns for a higher being
yearns to spend time with God,
as if he is hardwired
to long
for something like a perfect eternity
and although he lives in cities of concrete
does build great memorial signs,
sometimes man lives
as if everything is only for the here and now
but there remains a homesick urge
to something higher
in which meaning comes to perfection
as if man does realize
that he is no god
and only exists mortally
on this planet.
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