Gert Strydom Poems

The smell of baled cut hay,
cut cornstalks, fuel from drums
the hot tractors cooling down
and in the semi-dark the hoard
...

I believe there is a place called Zion
that was prepared by Jesus, who is my Lord and my God.
where joy and happiness does without end go on
and through the trials and tribulations I will go dry-shod
...

(a small ode to my wife Daleen)

Hers is a clean kitchen
with everything tidy in its place
...

It’s as if the darkness
walks over the twilight abyss
with a blackness that totally removes sight
before the first stars appear slowly
...

(after Roy Campbell)

They praise there own elitist workmanship
then write a poem over and over again
...

It’s autumn and while leaves drift down
from the big old pepper tree
you sit on a bench in our garden
with a distant look on your face
...

Now suddenly there are dinosaurs appearing,
and they do tread deep tracks and bite with their jaws
before they disappear again in the distance
and immediately you can realise the impossibility of this.
...

Sometimes dreams are awful and not nice
and beings that are not human or of man
linger wherever they can
and they bring fear when they do not entice
...

like a bird in full song
with its throat throbbing
and it’s almost the beginning of spring
and as the day goes along
...

I was called up to a military camp
and we were in tents in Parrow
and I was seconded to a special unit
on our way to De Brug
...