Gert Strydom Poems

Here I am back from the hell of the army and war
and my voice stutters of AK-47 fire,
while my face do tell about thousands of dead enemies,
RPG-7 rocket-launchers comes with each lifeless glance,
...

Only you I do really in my mind and heart see
as you are more than any other woman to me
and you can trust these words as utter truth
where to my humanity you do bring a new ability.
...

The day is rainy miserable and cold
and this morning I feel a thousand years old,

somewhere below freezing this winter is
...

You do live in
the canvas of your soft skin
and I look at you, some call it lust, others sin
but we do call it love, the way that life begins.
...

(in answer to Joan St. Leger Lindbergh)

I
While writing poems losing the words, the sound,
...

(in answer to Johan Myburgh)

Words I write as formularies in what they are
that does tell about life and about absolute truth,
...

(after Cas Vos)

I write to you hymns, psalms and songs of praise
about where you do fit into my life,
...

Your body gleams a deeper purple and green-bronze
where with your beak you peck up snails and earthworms
before the backyard buzz as you screech shrilly,
and the afternoon rest is disturbed in a mere moment
...