20 March 2003 Poem by Gert Strydom

Strongly the wind blows
and outside the house on the paving
two broken dove-eggs lie,
a newborn dead dove
so pink and hair- and featherless
and Sasja, the golden cocker spaniel, has a feast
do bark at the bakbakiris (bush-shrikes)
as if they are going to bring her more presents
that does fall out of the air
or maybe forever
she wants to drive them away from this yard
or maybe the wind will fulfil her wishes
to bring her some more eggs and little birds
while Jeanie, the brown Labrador,
do only at a distance look at this affair.

The SABC's news have got a report
of gigantic hailstones bigger than golf-balls
that had fallen in the East Rand in Benoni,
the roofs of car's and buildings have been damaged
and a man has been admitted to a private hospital
after some of the hail did hit him on the head.

The BBC-News and CNN blaze it out
that the American war with Iraq has begun
and I still do remember the two tower blocks
that did burn like hellish fires
and did collapse,
about the many people
that were killed, hurt and did escape
and that scene is almost hardwired
with the whole world and burnt into memory

and it's clear that America is angry with Saddam Hussein,
when in secret
the HAARP installation in Alaska is switched on
and broadcasts are made into the sky
to target every soldier and other person in Iraq
as a kind of brainwashing and people
do become terribly perplexed and jaded
and it is switched off

while in the darkness from heaven
bombers like gryphons from the portals of hell
do dive down and lay their deadly eggs,
and I have heard how these air strikes were carried out
at more than eight levels

and children, women, old people
and the enemy soldiers are killed,
every bit of resistance is wiped out by this iron-fist
and later the battle-tanks do creep right through the desert
and do destroy as far as they go,
to also have a feast of it

and the countries of the world that are not toady towards America
do watch all of these things from a distance
while the man in the bush (their president) talks like a monster
that everyone that is not with America
are her enemies
as if no one can stay neutral

and where American general H. Norman Zwartskopf do burst out
do say that what he has to say is only his own opinion
but that Saddam Hussein is a liar
about all kinds of things
like religious places being targeted,
that America do touch the hearts of many people in Iraq
who are logical, reasonable and intellectual
but the normal man in the street
is called a mob by him
and their opinion will not change
and where Hussein does say that his country has fought
against the best that the coalition has
Zwartskopf says that the best is yet to come

and from this I do wonder what that man was really saying,
do wonder about how the normal people is seen
by the general in control,
if bombs can fall on any innocent person,
if every innocent child, woman and man
could be be shot dead
and do wonder to where this world is going.

© Gert Strydom