Gert Strydom Poems

Being called up for another military camp
as a citizen force soldier against my will
and this one is in Cape Town,
for eight parades
...

From wall to wall
beds are lined up in rows,
with polished shining floors,
grey metal cupboards of which the doors
...

I saw him peering
into the early evening,
watching the setting sun
on a lookout tower
...

Leading riders on black motorbikes swish past
with flashing red lights
over the crossing of Arabat street
where rows of lamp-poles
...

Mom did not see the passing out parade,
twelve hundred kilometres to home and back
is a long run, but she did visit me in a military hospital
...

In the nightmare that I do sometimes get
the South African border war
and operations in Angola are alive again
with shots being fired, people dying,
...

I take your fingers in both of my hands
see a smile in your eyes, on your mouth and teeth

and far away from reality I am taken
...

When I hear your car roaring in the street,
when the motor-gate of the palisades groan open

and the two Jack Russell dogs begin to whine
...

I am back after twenty years
and my childhood memories
are clear, but this place
is no longer as it had been.
...

When we went to school
we had respect, good manners
combed our hair, brushed our nails and teeth
wore uniforms and blazers
...