Gert Strydom Poems

(for Annelize)

Where the sparrows chirp and doves coo,
it's if all the birds this morning sing with joy
...

Valery Gerasimov Russian chief of staff
is wounded near the city of Izyum,
where he was sent to affect the stalled war.
...

Unlock your heart,
let me be of your life a part:

you are in all my imaginings,
...

Where the Ukrainians win the country back,
town upon town is freed from the Russians,
where they find ruins and shocked people
and the Russians know these heroic people.
...

(for Annelize)

My heart-felt feelings I cannot now hide,
there is electricity when you are here
...

(for Annelize, after Elisabeth Eybers)

You did not just understand me
but time and again you did stand by me,
...

Your body is the bread and Your blood the wine,
constantly You are here in fellowship
and at times I find poor broken people on the street,
where I cannot leave them to mercy.
...

(after William Butler Yeats)

The world is in pieces, it falls apart,
when darkness wants to bring annihilation,
...

(for Annelize, in answer to Lina Spies)

Outside lightning-bolts flash down blue-white,
and in the bright sunlight the rain pours down
...

From the dress-rehearsal at the Red-Grave
I know that eleven thousand troops are taking part
in a victory parade with patriotism at heart,
where the military is shown as strong and brave,
...