Gert Strydom Poems

No one could a time just as this one foresee
where during a lock-down I would miss you so,
are by government restricted to you to go,
where from this virus there is nowhere to flee
...

On 22 May 2019 two black men with rifles in their hands
jumped over the bladed-wire fence and entered the property.
When I confronted them at the front door they were impudent and insolent
and I saw some more men and on a brain wave slammed the door shut,
...

Look my love; I send to you the red sun,
that looks red-eyed in the morning and late afternoon
and brightly over your skin bake down intimately,
that you do day upon day see wherever you are.
...

It was at a time
where you had
to wear a uniform to school,
had to cut your hair
...

After the rain
the air is full of swallows
swishing up and down
hanging in it
...

I am trying to get a job
at Springs
and wonder why people live here
away from Johannesburg
...

Every day rain falls down
from the overcast grey sky
and lightning bolts
flash blue white
...

A young girl and an old man
walk down steps
to the stretch
that the beach at Houtbay
...

I see a ship
passing beyond the breakers
white on the top
and red at the bottom
...

At night the light shines
with a tender yellowness
through the blue pool
as if encased
...