The Great Dragon Poem by Gert Strydom

(after WH Auden)

1
wants to purge, discipline and feast,
do turn especially to people from the East,

like any other false religion it believes it cannot fail,
slowly silently it devours itself, do every other one assail,

with snapping jaws agape it crunches at all other things
do fly worldwide with evil demonic black death-bringing wings

and in a catastrophe it's science and technology lags behind,
with amok within or complacency it kills the spirit soul and mind

(and silently, so very silently
it acts in total secrecy.)

2
At Chernobyl Russian technology do become dilapidated with a bang
and at the start while people's lives do in the balance hang,

it's believed that a Russian reactor is superior to the finest detail
and as they do act immediately it's to no kind of avail.

When the switch is pressed that should stop everything it increases the load
and to the horror of the civilized world it does with catastrophe explode,

(and silently, so very silently
it's kept in total secrecy)

American satellites do immediately the blown up reactor find
while poisonous substances are carried by the wind.

All that does remain of Pripyat and Chernobyl
are the signs of how a person should communist technology bewail,

as people are forced to more than there lives give
and ghost towns remain where nobody can live.

A small girl writes on a board at school:"look after my cat"
but there is no unaffected living thing, not even a rat.

Painfully scientists, firemen and normal people do die that were exposed,
every entry to that radiated wasteland have been closed,

sorrowful parents do hold their misshapen babies (have got cancer from this)
and to human error the dragon do persist that it is

(and silently, so very silently
it keeps the real truth in total secrecy)

After all of this as the danger of Russian technology do over everything tower
my government (South Africa)wants to invest in Russian nuclear power.

(and silently, so very silently,
its plans are kept in total secrecy)

3

In China where people cannot their religion or beliefs choose
from what people do eat the Corona virus breaks loose,

becomes a menace to all of humankind
and the Chinese cannot a cure to it find

but believe that their medicine will above all prevail,
that it comes to rescue to anything that does ail

(and silently, so very silently
the outbreak is kept in total secrecy)

China do not ask for help or use any kind of commonsense
and the whole wide world is plagued with a pestilence.

Without having any kind of measure to or warning of this,
from another person a sneeze or cough could have death's kiss,

it affects people suddenly out of the blue
and kills and acts as if it's the common-flue

(and silently, so very silently
it's acts in total secrecy)

[Reference:"August 1968" by WH Auden,

I am quoting WH Auden's poem here:

"August 1968" by WH Auden,

"The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips."]