Gert Strydom, 3 july 2013
Sometimes I take your soft hand
and feel how it glows with heat
and sometimes your eyes gleam
on the other side of the table when tears flow
and sometimes emotions burn in them
and our words are cut off bluntly
but sometimes kisses fall like waves on the continent
of your body when I am rowing to a place of rescue
and sometimes I am totally tired
but still you remain my only one.
Gert Strydom, 3 july 2013
Red-blonde your hair gleams and they are delicate
when together we walk to the church
and suddenly the world feels pretty and open
when the sun glistens and shines in a blue sky
and the last signs of winter are disappearing
when you start a cheerful conversation
and your eyes, your smile is full of new hope
and you are lovely, pretty and sophisticated.
Gert Strydom, 3 july 2013
At times you do astound me
and in your presence sometimes I feel brave and a fool
like a child that is lost in a store full of sweets
when continually our love comes to new heights.
[Reference: “By ‘n weerbegin” (At starting over) by Fanie Olivier.]
Gert Strydom, 2 july 2013
Interests that lack potential anguish
like hunting, parachuting, motor-biking
takes precedence as we go everywhere,
when together all fear we do vanquish,
and sometimes we are in tranquility hiking,
while still the great thrill of danger is there.
Gert Strydom, 2 july 2013
(after Mongane Wally Serote)
At a time I did call you fatherland
and there are other countries
from where my ancestors came
that does not even know me
or that I do exist
and like onto a father
I have been bound to you by birth
with no choice of where to see the first light
but as I had no choice to be born in you
my life, career, language and history
came from you and is part of you
and you do throb in my heartbeat.
You did force me into military service
and I was forced to defend your borders
and as a eighteen year old boy
was forced into situations and places
where mere boys were destroyed
and did fall down from living
into a suffering death
or had been burned alive
after the explosion of projectiles
and I have offered my very soul
to keep you safe and sound,
but what were you doing to me, fatherland?
Fatherland, you did chase away
my brothers and sisters
and other far-away countries
they now call home
and although I am well-educated and experienced
you have banished me from work
and you have reserved jobs
for your other children
whom you do regard with more love than me
and you do treat me
as if I do not have a right to make a living.
The criminals in you frighten me, fatherland.
Corrupt officials make me despondent
and I have been robbed of two cars
and see other people begging
on the corners of the streets
with boards tied around their necks
and some of my brothers have drank poison,
have hung themselves up in trees
in the very town where I do live
and I have become
but a throw-away child of you
and at a time you saw me
as your own
but now you have got contempt for me
and others from foreign countries
are treated by you as people
and still I do exist
as a child born onto your very earth.
[Referece: “Alexandra” by Mongane Wally Serote.]
Gert Strydom, 1 july 2013
When we did meet I had lost all of my confidence
that had been with me through my younger years,
God himself created you as my companion in His providence
and although at a time our love has brought me tears
your love has been to my broken heart a balm
and you have been the strong wind beneath my wings,
the one who brings my restless soul to a place of calm
and I do appreciate the many different things
that you daily do and the simple way
when in secret for me you do pray.
Gert Strydom, 1 july 2013
I am devoting my whole life to you,
days that are merry and some that are blue,
some divine intervention made us meet,
to me you will always be very sweet
with your eyes glittering in perfect hue,
I am devoting my whole life to you,
I am devoting my whole life to you,
of the future I do not have a clue,
here and now our feelings are very strong
while only together we do belong,
and I want to stick to you like strong glue,
I am devoting my whole life to you,
I am devoting my whole life to you,
until my last days are gone and are through
I am giving my body, soul and heart
and wish never again from you to part
every day your life I want to pursue,
I am devoting my whole life to you.
Gert Strydom, 1 july 2013
Slowly I do adjust to hoe life now is
but you do still remain loving me
while I am becoming aware how things fit together
Slowly I do adjust to hoe life now is
while I am making new friendships
and far too quickly days, months, years do past
while slowly I do adjust to hoe life now is
but you do still remain loving me.
Gert Strydom, 28 june 2013
Its presence was here with a faint glow,
if it was a godly or demonic messenger
I did not know and to act I was quite slow
as on this earth I am only a passenger
and am alone as life goes on.
but the strange visiting envoy is now gone.
Gert Strydom, 28 june 2013
Sometimes dreams are awful and not nice
and beings that are not human or of man
linger wherever they can
and they bring fear when they do not entice
and fill our dreams with the most awful things
as they are present doing their evil throughout the night
and in the darkness I had struggled up to the daylight
saw a sinister being with black folded wings
while time and again I bid the devil back to hell
as I was frightened in my body’s fragile shell
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