Gert Strydom, 28 july 2014
Eagerly I want to go with you that I do love
to the South coast, to Margate, to Uvongo
but before we can start our journey
there is floodwater that sweeps the beach away,
days continue with the sun in its orbit
and nothing still stays untouched
and so it’s with my own conceit
where my body is already growing old
but love remains immortal in you
and to the march of time it has got no concern.
Gert Strydom, 28 july 2014
(after Lord George Gordon Byron)
Love is far more than just lust or desire
it’s something that dwells in every thought,
burning with a kind of immortal fire
something that we do want and sometimes sought,
it’s even in solitude and devotion,
a kind of thing that truly makes us whole,
going much deeper than just emotion
bringing selfless glory to the human soul,
at times a never ending kind of goal.
Gert Strydom, 25 july 2014
Lord, now in the last years of my life
I smell the fragrance of the blooming spring flowers
and as promised You have let my eyes fall
on Your blessed Son
and I have witnessed the child
that You have brought into this old cruel world
to be a salvation to all of mankind
and I have now found peace
as I am witness of Your eternal love
that You now walk among men.
Gert Strydom, 25 july 2014
I
When I was out and about
on the farm one day
tending the chickens,
mending a door
I heard a jolly tune being played
and maybe I was daydreaming
but I believe I had an apparition
of a noble man playing a harp.
II
I heard him sing
of the Guardian of heaven
playing on a string
in a merry tune to liven me up,
about the power of the Creator
who in wonder made angelic beings
greater than the fallen prosecutor
and the God that created man and all things
made the blue hued sky
the earth as man’s dwelling
even you and I
and the sun that’s rising
and his words were sweet and sincere
came into my heart precise and clear.
III
and then smiling at me lowering the harp
he said: “write lad,
write about anything
and let your words sing
about the sun’s rising
and about the beauty of spring.
Just write anything.”
Gert Strydom, 24 july 2014
Naboth did not want to sell
or trade his vineyard
to king Ahab as he believed
that the Lord had forbid
him to sell his inheritance,
but that vineyard was near
to the palace of Ahab,
who sulked and was angry about it,
where he was laying on his bed
and refusing to eat.
He told his wife Jezebel,
a princess from Tyre, about it
(and she worshipped Baal),
told him to cheer up
and that she would get him the vineyard.
Then she wrote letters in his name,
placing his seal on them
to the elders and nobles
where Naboth lived
ordering them to proclaim a festival
and at the feast
to let Naboth sit between two scoundrels
and let them testify falsely
that he had cursed both God
and the King
and then to stone Naboth to death.
As soon as Jezebel heard
that Naboth was dead
she told Ahab
to take the vineyard into possession
but God spoke to
Elijah the Tishbite to tell Ahab:
“Have you not murdered a man
to take his property?
Here where dogs have licked up Naboth’s blood,
dogs will lick up yours!”
So Ahab said:
”You, my enemy have found me!”
“You have done evil and even your descendants
will be cut off,
every last male of them
slave or free man.
Dogs will devour your wife, Jezebel,
will eat your children dying in the city,
and in the country the birds of prey
will feed on them,” Elijah replied
but then Ahab fasted wearing sackcloth,
humbled himself before God
and he was spared for some time.
In a battle against the king of Aram
Ahab fought in disguise
along with Jehoshaphat king of Juda
and the enemy chariot commanders
were ordered to only fight
against the king of Israel
and when they attacked
the king of Juda,
Johoshapahat cried out
and they saw that he was not
the king of Israel
and broke off their attack,
but one of them
draw his bow at random
hitting Ahab between sections
of his armour and he bled to death
and was buried in Samaria
but while men washed his blood
from his wagon
at a pool where the prostitutes bathed
and were cleaning their weapons
dogs licked up his blood.
Later the prophet Elisha
send a man
from the company of prophets
to Ramoth Gilead
where he took Jehu
a commander of the army
into a inner room,
poured a flask of oil out over his head
and did declare:
“This is what God says:
I anoint you
as king over Israel
and you are to destroy
the house of Ahab your master”
and the young prophet then opened the door
and ran away.
When Jehu came out
one his fellow officers
asked if every thing was well
and why the madman did come to him?
Jehu told them that he was anointed
as king over Israel
and in a hurry they spread
their cloaks on the bare steps
in front of him,
blew on the horn shouting:
“Jehu is king!”
Jehu said: “If this is how you feel,
let no one slip out of this city
and tell Joram,
and Jehu got into his chariot
and did ride all the way to Jezreel
with his troops following him
but the lookout at the tower of Jezreel
saw them approaching
and king Joram ordered a horseman
to go and meet them
and to ask if they come in peace?
The horseman rode out
and Jehu asked him:
“What do you have to do with peace,”
ordered him to fall in behind
and when the lookout reported
that the messenger did not come back
another messenger was send
and did not return either.
The lookout reported that the driving
of the front wagon is like that of Jehu
who drives like a madman
and Joram (the king of Israel)
and Ahaziah (the king of Juda)
had their chariots hitched up
and drove out to meet Jehu.
They met Jehu at the plot of land
that belonged to Naboth
and Joram asked Jehu
if he was coming in peace?
Jehu replied: “How can there be peace
as long as the witchcraft and idolatry
of your mother Jezebel abounds?”
Turning his wagon around Joram
tried to escape, while shouting at Ahaziah
that they had been betrayed
but Jehu did draw his bow to its full strength
and his arrow pierced Joram’s heart
and he slumped down in his chariot
and Jehu ordered his chariot officer Bidkar
to throw the body of Joram
in the field belonging to Naboth.
Ahaziah saw what happened
and fled with the road to Beth Haggan
and Jehu drove his chariot
with speed after him shouting:
“Kill him too!”
Near Ibleam they wounded him in his chariot,
but he escaped
to Megiddo where he died
and Jehu went back to Jezreel
and Jezebel painted her eyes,
arranged her hair
and was looking out of the window
as he was driving in.
She shouted to him:
“Are you here in peace,
is Zimri well,
murderer of your master?”
Then Jehu looked up at the window shouting:
“Who is on my side? Who?”
Two or maybe three
male servants looked down at him.
“Throw her down!” Jehu ordered
and they threw her down
and some of her blood
splattered on the wall
and on to the horses
that trampled her.
Jehu went into the palace to eat and drink
and then remembering Jezebel and said:
“Take care of that cursed woman
and bury her as she is a king’s daughter,”
but when they went to her
only her skull, feet and hands were left
as the dogs had devoured her flesh
and no one was able to say:
“This is Jezebel.”
Gert Strydom, 24 july 2014
Maybe there is a deep secret
of how people really do find happiness
or maybe meaning blows away like leaves in the wind
with how life really is
but still everything does bare a deeper meaning
when you bind yourself to someone else.
Maybe there is a deep secret
of how people really do find happiness
in emotions of love and sympathy
and hope is as the trust of a child,
even when destiny is about to devour everything.
Maybe there is a deep secret
of how people really do find happiness.
Gert Strydom, 24 july 2014
During the night I am travelling to you,
to fold you in my arms
when the sun is rising
and to embrace you tightly,
to trust you with my secrets
that I cherish deep in my heart
and to take you to places
that is still strange to you,
to where real intimacy,
love and tranquillity are found.
Gert Strydom, 23 july 2014
Through the dense wilderness
where the red earth swallows everything
Ratel armoured cars burst through the bush
from Rundu to where
the Cuzizi and Lomba rivers cross
while scouts reconnoitre the enemy
and it unleashes a battle that lasts for days
that crushes and burns thousands of enemy soldiers
and everywhere around us there is danger,
there are enemies fighting and others deserting and running away
where we press them in between the two rivers
to where we make a death acre
while the enemy shoot with their battle tanks and armour,
Mig-warplanes every now and then drop their bombs,
South Africans pull the heart out of FAPLA,
out of the Cubans and the Russians
and the shadow of the South African soldier falls
over Africa and far away hangs
over Cuba and Russia
and mothers and wives in Angola and Cuba cover their faces
while they long for their husbands and boys
and suddenly the communists start to talk about peace,
politicians as if in rapture
make accords and do tolerate each other
as if we are brothers in the universe
and the world that had been disappears into the nought.
[References: “The battle at Cuito Cuanavale: “The results of the campaign up to April 1988 were 4,785 killed on the Cuban/Faplan side, with 94 tanks and hundreds of combat vehicles destroyed, against 31 South Africans killed in action, 3 tanks destroyed (SADF tanks entered the war after the Lomba River campaign) and 11 SADF armoured cars and troop carriers lost. A total of 9 Migs were destroyed and only 1 SAAF Mirage shot down.” (General) Jannie Geldenhuys. (1994): At the front. Jonathan Ball Publishers. P240.
“The South African force, under the command of Colonel Deon Ferreira, was tasked with carrying out three operations (1) Operation Modular - The aim of which was to halt and reverse the FAPLA / Cuban advance on the UNITA strongholds of Mavinga and Jamba, (2) Operation Hooper - The aim of which was to inflict maximum casualties on the retreating FAPLA / Cuban forces after they had been halted and (3) Operation Packer - The aim of which was to force the FAPLA / Cuban forces to retreat to the west of the Cuito River.” Nortje, Piet (2003). 32 Battalion. Zebra Press.
"In early October the Soviet-Fapla offensive was smashed at the Lomba River near Mavinga. It turned into a headlong retreat over the 120 miles back to the primary launching point at Cuito Cuanavale. In some of the bloodiest battles of the entire civil war, a combined force of some 8,000 UNITA fighters and 4,000 SADF troops destroyed one Fapla brigade and mauled several others out of a total Fapla force of some 18,000 engaged in the three-pronged offensive. Estimates of Fapla losses ranged upward of 4,000 killed and wounded. This offensive had been a Soviet conception from start to finish. Senior Soviet officers played a central role in its execution. ... Huge quantities of Soviet equipment were destroyed or fell into UNITA and SADF hands when Fapla broke into a disorganized retreat... The 1987 military campaign represented a stunning humiliation for the Soviet Union, its arms and its strategy. ... As of mid-November, the UNITA/SADF force had destroyed the Cuito Cuanavale airfield and pinned down thousands of FAPLA's best remaining units clinging onto the town's defensive perimeters." Crocker, Chester A. (1992) High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighbourhood. (Crocker was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Reagan Administration.)
John Turner claims that: “following their losses, the Cubans were convinced that further military confrontation with the SADF would not succeed.” Turner, John W. (1998). Continent Ablaze; The Insurgency Wars in Africa, 1960 to the Present. Cassell Plc.
Comments made by a Soviet adviser to the Cubans in Angola: "The people's armed forces for the liberation of Angola have not been able either, even with the help of the Cubans, to decisively defeat the enemy and drive him out of the territory or the country.” M. Ponomariov, Krasnaya Zvezda Magazine; 20 May 1988.]
Gert Strydom, 23 july 2014
(in answer to N.P. van Wyk Louw)
I have heard an urgent message
that with the coming of the great creator God
planets will loose their light,
even in the outer universe that lays far off
and on the power of the omnipotent command
all of the stars will loose their light,
that love will exist to eternity
when God comes to lead his people,
that a sea of flame will cover this planet
and will come from the omnipotent Lord,
that all under the power of darkness
will admit that He is righteous and honourable,
that the universe will know of the judgement of the almighty God
and that a great crowd of people will gather with Him.
[Reference: “Inferno” by N.P. van Wyk Louw.]
Gert Strydom, 23 july 2014
Never has a peaceful silence been between us,
intimate body language
has never said so many things
with the beautiful curve
of your breasts surging
while the night stretches into darkness,
with your two eyes shining like burning objects
and do anew create new desires in me
and it feels as if this time can last eternally,
as if everything just did come
to this moment, this single hour
as the peak of existence, the peak between life and death
while in passion are catching a mere moment
to which your moans and cries does hang.
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