Gert Strydom Poems

(in answer to John Clare)

Who I am, even if my friends do not, God knows
even when in sin I am lost
...

(in answer to W. H. Auden)

Even if by the stars I am smitten
and they do not know or care
...

(for Annelize)

In your walking I watch your flowing grace
and you are so lovely that I can take you any place
...

The Telkom South Africa landline is down
my eighty nine year old aunt looks at me with a frown
and fifty Rand spent on the mobile phone
do not get assistance and she is still cut-off and alone,
...

At the big old house against the hillock
mother believed that sense she could into us knock
while her Bible she constantly did study
about God taught my brother and me
...

As a child I looked at God's heaven on the other side of the blue
while in fear and wonder adults did over a comet argue
as if disaster could leave the earth to be just a speck of dust,
in wonder I looked at the stars in the heaven did in God trust,
...

(for Annelize)

I tried our love and all of its ways to define
and of it I wrote from memory's recollection
...

(in answer to Dorothy Parker)

To king Arthur I was wedded until his death
and I loved him then sincere as I love him now
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The restless ocean did not expect him,
the winged dragon that did fall down into the water,
that did sink and became a part of the deeper darkness,
where he dreamt to above God have power,
...

(for Annelize)

In a world of hardship, calamity and woe
you are in my heart, my blood and my head
...