Here I Am, A Man That Is World-Weary (In Answer To T.S. Eliot) Poem by Gert Strydom

I

Here I am, a man that is world-weary,
in a month without rain
and passion and the pain
are still aflame and burning in me.

At the gates of death, destruction and desolation
I did in my youth trod
fired a rifle, a canon and whatever gun in angry shot
and then had a obligation

II

to be true to my country, to be true to you
but now I am getting weary
while life is slowly getting eerie
as if it’s coming to an end, as if I have lost the glue

that has hold my body and my spirit together
and whatever waits in the new day
is coming from the hand of the new government to bother
my fellow countrymen and I and still God do I obey.

II

We live in times of signs and wonders
in the technological new age,
but my fellow men is at rage
as if they are getting orders

that is swaddled in darkness
to maim, to rob and kill
driving every white man to the edge of the abyss
as if it is to them an immense thrill

III
but still there are many blessings
flowing from the hand of God
that I, this poor sod
of a human being see every day in my awakening

and with careful hands
we try to build a future
but I feel like an old horse led to the pasture
in a place of pitiless lands

IV

and from shoelaces we build
try and produce something great
as if we are masters of some or other guild
knowing that time is running out and we cannot wait

in a world where this knowledge
is not comprehended by everyone
where the world of yesterday is totally gone,
we try to earn a living and to live on standing at the edge

V
of a darkening abyss
and with courage, without any fear
we see the new morning drawing near
as if it is

the age and time that a whole nation has waited on
and while the battle begins we comprehend that the fighting
is not left to us alone and that it’s spreading
from the very hand of God, that His armies are marching on

VI

and the thousand thoughts and small deliberations
will not lead us to victory
nor any arms we take up in our iniquity
as we are only mere men in His mighty considerations

with love and understanding and in truth
we have to wait on His salvation
coming to our wrecked nation
and every one even the youth

VII

have got to comprehend
that the battle will in due time
draw to an end
that in this world of hardship and crime,

salvation will be coming from a power supreme and divine
and that His righteousness is overpowering
even in impossible situations still conquering
and that His covenant stays through time without any decline.

[Reference: Gerontion by T.S. Eliot.]