Gert Strydom, 4 august 2016
Will it last this romantic fantasy of shadow and light?
The crimson-red rising moon hangs low where we do walk
through this lovers-lane that it is making tonight.
You are right against me while of lasting love we talk.
Is it magic or a strange kind of reality
when your arms slip around my head,
when you do passionately kiss me
am I alive, in heaven or dead?
As if God on us does His blessing endow
when you promise to be my wife
your whole face does glow,
and this is a day in my and your life.
Gert Strydom, 2 august 2016
There is something in how she looks at me and looks away again
and I think aloud Satan, Lucifer, demon, devil be gone
as she is going to seduce me with her summer sunshine laughter
in the twilight, dark night or bright day
with her eyes that glitter when she notices me
and I wonder if God does provide such lovely girls
with her walking away that continually whispers promises
and her voice that falls sweetly on my ear
but when she stands right in front of me
and talks to me my breath is taken away
and I notice a small muscle jumping, jumping in her throat
and her snow-white teeth, her hands, freckles and feet is something
against which I do not know how to resist
and then she brings her lips right against mine.
Gert Strydom, 2 august 2016
Your walking away is measured in watt.
Not the 1100 p.m.p.o. of a door slamming shut behind you
that are opened and slammed again
but it is the pattering gait that just can be heard
and the whisper of satin
when you do go to our bedroom
and welcoming the door stays open
when continuously the fourteen-day rain does softly fall
and flames hiss at the fireplace and wood gleam red from the heat
while Steve Hofmeyer on the Kenwood music system
does sing sadly like Neil Diamond
and candles burn romantically at the bath
like a Jewish candlestick that welcomes the Sabbath
and does announce the beginning of the year of jubilee
where everything is again nice and right
to far into the future
and no children or grandchildren
do bring resistance in their visiting multitude
and you and I are alone
like Adam and Eve
when they did noticed each other for the first time.
Gert Strydom, 1 august 2016
Annoyed the small girl turns to him and says: “Oh no.”
Bees do fly around her in the garden.
Caesar stands in front of her
dangling a wooden sword in his hand,
eager to come to her defence.
Followers to come to their aid do not exist.
Great numbers of vicious bees want to sting them.
He hits a few as enemies down.
Ibises fly up frightened and screaming
just when a whole swarm of bees want to sting them.
Keen-witted he drags her away by the hand.
“Leave us alone you demons,” he screams.
More and more bees fly venomously nearer,
nowhere there is any escape
“Obviously we are going to loose this battle,” his princess says anxious.
Pacify they cannot the enemy. Who is the wretched
quisling that have betrayed them to the foes?
Racing, their hearts beat and they cannot guess while the enemy swish nearer
sting and buzz and they have got to
take defeat and fall back.
Unarmed against the enemy they flee to the protection of the
villa with its huge windows
where no bees can reach them and like a real
Xanthippe mother yells at them to get out of the
yard where it has become very dangerous.
Zulu, the Maltese poodle continually does howl outside.
Gert Strydom, 29 july 2016
Just for a moment it is there, the lightning bolt that falls
and the smell of something that burns and melts next to a puddle
from where the blue spark bright blinding touches and reach
and with a terrible thunder suddenly roars
with fear on the faces of my child, my wife
that just where I am standing
that lightning bolt does menacing fall.
In that moment’s blinding blue light
while a terrible rainstorm pours down
and I do shake like a reed
I do know that such moments does not linger
but you can take them out of your thoughts again
just like moments of bliss and happiness
where the touching, the colour, the sound and smell does remain
and etched you can find that moment again
from where like old letters you do fold them up and keep them in a small box.
When more lightning bolts slam down my ears are tingling and ringing
while I run to where the woman and child is waiting on the porch
and in the garden its twilight, almost night
where the woman and child are both crying from emotion.
Gert Strydom, 28 july 2016
(in answer to Mteto Mzongwana)
I am astonished at how things in the new South Africa do go forward,
see the mountain and places around Pretoria in flames,
hear a the ramble of a uprising at the universities where people are fighting
and others pray in groups for peace amid great suspicion.
At schools some girls are raped until they are pregnant
and Christian teachings are unknown,
boys are chopped with axes and swords and are bladed
and some children do disappear without a tract and are missing.
The false prophets in parliament keep telling people
how they create jobs,
that it goes well right through the country
and people are hungry, impoverished and at the portals of hell
because as in the far past crowds are coming from eMbo
(from every African country to the north)
under a new Nguni and Dlamini in a second great roving expedition,
while the country looks like Eden and a rainbow nation paradise
and everywhere there is racism and political correct fraud,
terrible unemployment
and in South Africa it goes far better than it ever has,
on the highways in Gauteng people pay e-tol
and most motorists are fed up with this new tax
where the other roads are full of potholes
and the conditions in state hospitals are terrifying.
l’Envoi
A poet must tell the truth
and cannot talk injustice, dilapidation and lies good
of a country that is sketched as ideal
but in reality is nothing but another rubbish heap state.
[Reference: ”Es daar mense” (There are people) by Mteto Mzongwana.]
Gert Strydom, 28 july 2016
To the front in the road
blue Metro traffic cop lights flash,
a roadblock is set up and pistols
are aimed at the occupants of a car
in the bright daylight
and bombs are removed from the criminals
which the PCF-community guard report
was meant for the blowing up of teller machines.
An armoured car parks at a bank
where four guards with machineguns
and two with money canisters jump out
and one of them commands me to halt
when on the sidewalk I want to pass
and all of them become very angry
when I do not take notice of their antics
and screaming.
At times I do hear jets bursting through the sound barrier,
see the snow-white lines against the bright blue sky
when I hang the washing
and wait upon the winter sun to bake everything dry.
Right through the night my dogs bark
at a police helicopter
that swishes up and down
our well to do suburb
and it hits me when we drive into the garage at home
that unknowing we may be living in a war zone
but it is safe where we live
behind steel palisades, barred windows
and steel gates
with a emergency button to press
for the ADT-security’s armed response
that arrives within five minutes.
[Reference: PCF = Police Community Forum.]
Gert Strydom, 27 july 2016
When the sun does flower outside
the children want to rollick
but you are still asleep
and will not be ready for some time.
You are glued to the mirror
and with your DD-breasts you are too fat in your own mind
while you do look at yourself in your scanty bikini
where you do have a perfect figure.
On the beach I do apply sun-tanning lotion to your body
where you sit under the shading umbrella
while every man does watch you
and from behind sunglasses you do peep at the other people.
Every afternoon we eat at a restaurant
on the edge of the beach
where you order seafood and the children feast on their steaks
and you do regard the holiday as miserable
even when we do drive out to places
and the children want to stay forever at the sea.
Gert Strydom, 26 july 2016
I yearn for the secrets of nature
where wild game graze next to the dust road
and I long for the veldt where it is silent,
silent from the bustle of the city,
where the sky has an own blue hue,
where the rain comes in the afternoon with thundershowers
and you can see interesting things if you look carefully,
can be astonished by insects, animals and flowers
but in the city I hear the turbines of Impala platinum singing continually,
are choking from the coal smoke from the squatter camp that is nearby
and on the highway people are angry and cannot restrain themselves,
at factories in the distance I notice pollution and vapour,
the money machines at Carnival casino jingle without end
and on Friday afternoons the whistling of the alarms echo
when poisonous gasses and dangerous things build up at the factories
and it is at these times that I want to leave the city,
go back to the veldt where you can find the works of God
and be able to believe in Him with the faith of a child.
Gert Strydom, 25 july 2016
At 52 the nuts of my country are stripped
so that nothing can fit together anymore
and everything in my world has changed.
At work I have been retrenched
and I can get no other work
in my profession
(for which a person does need a university degree
or two)
where the past of other people
is now catching up with me
as my country has experienced affirmative action
and that just for some people.
Some young people who are already mature
do attend church
but are not interested to be baptised,
do not even live out the principles
of that religion
and young girls in mini dresses
that is so short that you can see their panties
do lead out the song service from up front
and they do pray to daddy God
while a older gentleman
do scream in a black native language
on someone that whispers in an emergency during a service.
People do walk over others from their own people
to fit into the political correctness
where they work at the police or civil service
and the Yin-Yang (good and evil),
the point of view that every person is a god
and for others the prosperity religion
that does believe that those who are prosperous
are the only ones that are blessed by God
is very popular.
There are many old people who are an embarrassment
to their children,
and they are suffering from misery and poverty.
Some young children have got to wait a turn
to eat or not
and I do talk to God
over all of these things when I do kneel down to pray.
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