Gert Strydom, 20 october 2015
There is a time when night sneaks in,
when the roof creaks, while losing its heat
when chairs, tables, cupboards and all objects
become indistinct
part of the darkness of the night
and then my love
it’s a magical thing
to have your hot body against mine,
to feel you’re lips brushing on my skin
to become enveloped by you
as if everything is away
in a different reality.
Gert Strydom, 19 october 2015
The violent dispossession of farms
in Zimbabwe
is seen by some people as lawlessness (1)
and that it only is the consequence
of ethnic and racial hatred that is present
where the state does collapse, (2)
where lawful authority does lack
and that nothing else is hidden
beyond those occurrences
but when you look deeper
into all of this
facts do come to light
that is utterly disturbing.
It is a known fact
that the ruler in Zimbabwe
that has been voted out but still does rule
Robert Mugabe
is a Jesuit (3) (4) (5)
in the Roman Catholic Church
and that church
believes in the natural law
as had been set out by Thomas Aquinas
in his Summa Theologiae (6)
and everywhere where the state and church
had been one throughout history
there had been grave danger
as during the dark ages
where people had been executed
for that in which they do believe.
According to this natural law
possessions like farms, houses
cars and even tools
is being seen as only
in the title belonging to the owner
but that the community
has got the right of the use of it
above the owner
and even the violent dispossession
of such property
by the community
is justified.
[Footnotes:
(1) “ná grond-invasions in Zimbabwe” (After ther ground-invasions in Zimbabwe)” by Antjie Krog.
(2) “There is one type of fear more devastating in its impact than any other: the systematic fear that arises when a state begins to collapse. Ethnic hatred is the result of the terror that arises when legitimate authority disintegrates.” Michael Ignatieff: Blood and Belonging – Croatia and Serbia.
(3) “The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu, S.J., SJ or SI) is a male religious congregation of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits.” O'Malley, John W., ed. (2006). "The Formula of the Institute (p. XXXV)". Jesuits 2 (2nd ed.). Toronto:University of Toronto Press.
(4) “Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born near the Kutama Jesuit Mission in the Zvimba District northwest of Salisbury, in Southern Rhodesia, to a Malawian father, Gabriel Matibili, and a Shona mother, Bona, both Roman Catholic. He was the third of six children. He had two older brothers, Michael (1919–34) and Raphael. Both his older brothers died when he was young, leaving Robert and his younger brother, Donato (1926–2007), and two younger sisters – Sabina and Bridgette.” Mugabe mourns reclusive brother". newzimbabwe.com. 11 December 2009. Retrieved 4 August2013.
(5) “Mugabe was raised as a Roman Catholic, studying in Marist Brothers and Jesuit schools, including the exclusive Kutama College, headed by an Irish priest, Father Jerome O'Hea, who took him under his wing. Through his youth, Mugabe was never socially popular nor physically active and spent most of his time with the priests or his mother when he was not reading in the school's libraries. He was described as never playing with other children but enjoying his own company. "Robert Mugabe: The man behind the fist".The Economist. 29 March 2007.
(6) The Papal Encyclical: “Rerum Novarum:” “Goods of some are due to others by the natural law. There is no sin if the poor take the goods of their neighbours. In cases of need, all things are common property, for the need has made it common. Not only is such taking of another’s property not a sin, it is not even crime. It is lawful for a man to succour his own need by means of another’s property by taking either openly or secretly, nor is this properly speaking, theft or robbery. It is not theft, properly speaking to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need, because that which he takes for the support of his own life becomes his own property by reason of that need. In a case of a like need a man may also take secretly another’s property to succour his neighbour’s need.” Summa Theologiae ii-ii 7th Article by Thomas Aquinas”
Poet’s note: This verse illustrates how easily man can make mistakes, where the church and state is one. Anyone who reads this verse as an assault on the Roman Catholic Church misinterprets it.]
Gert Strydom, 19 october 2015
The small redbreast sings and dances
up and down, up and down
while it is longing for the rain
and under the tree my two dogs are barking,
are jumping to try and catch that bird
and it’s a curious kind of thing
but the small redbreast is not disturbed
until the first lightning bolt comes
and great drops of rain pour down around him.
Gert Strydom, 18 october 2015
More than words can say
are the feelings
that lies deep in my heart
and although you tell me
about the intensity of your feelings,
there are no words
that can carry mine to you
as I do love you
more intensely than the bright sun,
more than the grains of sand
that you can hold in your hand,
deeper than the bright blue ocean,
past the distance of the most far off star
and when you are close
with your arms wrapped in love around me
my breath is taken away
and it feels as if eternally
I can bind my life to yours
as I do love you
with feelings up to now unknown
and the glance in your eyes,
the smile on your face
has got a sparkle that goes right through me.
There is electricity every time
that your hand touches mine
and like two love struck teenagers we are infected
with something that no other people has got,
with passion that keeps starting afresh,
with a flame that can never be smothered.
Gert Strydom, 16 october 2015
(In answer to W.E.G. Louw)
We did receive this country as property
that we did rather live in
as to conquer with a flint lock rifle
and we came to the open wide veldt,
did erect walls
to hold out the enemy, the predator
and the baboon,
did create cultivated fields,
even at places
where crops do not really belong,
out of our own crops of maize, wheat
and cattle did live, did map down a piece of land,
until Ratel armoured cars, Olifant main battle tanks
and Mirage fighter planes
did have to stop the enemy that were surrounding us,
where we did won battle upon battle and did destroy the Cubans
and a bald headed man did bring about great calamity,
where his brothers cannot anymore eat a piece of own bread,
where he did create beggars out of the Afrikaner nation,
did forget of the right of existence of his own brothers
and all walls do decay
and foreigners from right over Africa do stream in.
[Reference: “Mure” (Walls) by W.E.G. Louw.]
Gert Strydom, 16 october 2015
A child is a strange thing
that does take your most expensive books,
to stain them with his own drawings
and here and there words are twisted
and when that boy did find some of my first poems
he did write love poems for his girlfriend
and it was my own words with which he was wooing
that he did write down word upon word
and that file of mine was just gone
until I did find it beneath his bed
and to his mother those poems were inane, foolish and bad
but not for that child
and I wonder what he now does think of my verses,
if at times he still does place my words in his own ink?
Gert Strydom, 16 october 2015
Baby lies so fast asleep
that I dare not take her
into my arms,
too big the chance to wake her.
Rosy cheeks and a raspberry mouth
like a little angel, a sweet delight
but she’s someone else’s.
Sometimes at night
nothing can cuddle her tears away
and a shrill little voice
hangs in the air, piercing the darkness
cutting right until day
and those are the times
that mothers and fathers do pray.
Gert Strydom, 15 october 2015
It is a pitch-dark night
as if sky is filled with tar
and just here and there I notice stars
and we cat-sneak around
in a dark enemy camp
right through some thorn trees.
The moon is not yet out
and I am freezing before
I pass through a bare open piece of veldt
and it’s as if the backpack
does not sit right
and the web belt is scraping against me.
Around us there are guards
that we have difficulty noticing
until one of them lights a cigarette
and the blue flame
does suddenly brighten his face
and he is just a few paces away
from where we are.
Suddenly we do notice
other guards, lights
and vehicles
that drives up and down
and when a light
suddenly is switched off in front of us
I can hear my own heart beating
in my ears
and we try
to melt
into the long grass
and are aware of a vehicle
that leaves a road and are driving into our direction
and we want to cock our weapons
but we are too near to
the enemy guards
and between two of them
when that vehicle
does drive up to them.
We leopard crawl
to the shelter of few bushes
to escape the light
of the vehicle
and we can swear
that they did notice us.
Carefully I draw the knife
out of my boot
and when the vehicle does stop
between the guards
we both we both cock our rifles
which we aim at the enemy.
One of the soldiers
who climbs out of the vehicle
walks right into our direction
and the lights of the vehicle
lets him look like an apparition
in the way
that he walks closer
and we both do know
that this is trouble.
The man gets still closer
and I can hear
his boots crunch
over the small bushes and sand
where he stops
between the two of us
and he has got to be a Cuban
as I smell a Havana cigar
on which he sucks enthusiastic
and the knife feels cold in my hand
while he does unbutton his pants
and he has got to be night blind
as he is not aware of us
while I smell the salty odour
of his urine.
It feels like an eternity
before he turns around
and talking in Spanish walks back
and the vehicle
does depart a while later.
Gert Strydom, 14 october 2015
(after Petra Muller)
Who passes on the sidewalk she wants to grab,
wants to bite the postman’s arm right off,
motorbikes and bicycles she wants to catch
and every newspaper delivery man
and so the yard is guarded faithfully
from strange criminals that do sneak about and strange cats,
where she snarls at the dogs next door,
but when it’s full moon
she wants to get on her hind legs,
while she cries like a cruel wolf
while her head is jerked back
and there is nothing in the street that draws her attention.
[Reference: “Hekuba, die teef” (Hecuba, the bitch) by Petra Müller.]
Gert Strydom, 14 october 2015
(after A.G. Visser)
At a time he could preach interesting,
could hold the mind of every person from the pulpit
but now that he is preaching words that have no power
people do wonder about his relationship with God.
[Reference: “’n Predikant” (A pastor) by A.G. Visser.]
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