Gert Strydom Poems

(after Gert Vlok Nel)

You were the woman that found me and brought me back again
and I did love you and were afraid to try again
...

(in answer to Koos Kombuis)

At a time you were like my own shadow
that followed me just where I went,
...

Far too terribly I stiFar too terribly I still do you miss,
where it seems to you I do matter not.
No options for another I have got
where no marriage should be anything like this
...

I wonder how you now you are able to have no feelings,
where the impact of love still remains with me,
what are driving you to avoid me,
you do not have insight what the thousands of poems mean
...

You say you did not plan things like this
and at the end I am your throw-away husband,

where over a whole year you do reckon out your life
...

My Lord and God, Jahwé, Jesus, whatever man call you,
each human is rescued by You and not damned as You are true.
You created and people argue about Genesis and a big-bang.
You are eternal; the creator in whose hands life does hang.
...

Grandma, your dad was a Scotsman and a real gentleman,
your mother an Afrikaner in more than flesh and blood,
you taught me the principles of family,
believed that everyone should help each other,
...

Granddad Danie, of you there is little in my memory,
as you died when my mother was but a little girl
but legends and stories tell me about you,
of a man that trusts that God does remain with His people,
...

(after Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin)

In my Bible I find a flattened flower,
that to me smells somewhat scentless stale.
...

At eighteen I was called to the military
for compulsory service in a time of war.
My life changed from what it was before.
It felt if from destiny I would not be free,
...