Gert Strydom Poems

That night thunder flash after thunder flash
roared blood red,
I could smell scorched flesh, saw the havoc
of the burnt dead,
...

Time locks everything at a time
and with time many things heal
and even pain and sorrow disappear,
but it has no sense
...

Zero divided by one is zero,
but it bothered me
from my first conception
of mathematics
...

I see men standing next to each other
in a line
and they wear yellow and green.
...

There are few things that bother as much
as to look for you car
and almost to count the other car’s,
when you come round a corner
...

Far too many times it had been broken
and at times I had given it away.
Now I have quite suddenly been woken
at the very breaking of the new day
...

(after Paul Éluard)

In my sorrow I want to greet you tonight,
do want to say hello and goodbye to you my sweetheart,
...

Meters under the surface lies rocks that are rough, black and shining
where everything is caught in a twilight that trickles through from above,
where sea-grasses and bamboo gambols in the swell
when seekers with diving masks and oxygen swim still deeper,
...

There’s a black and white green-eyed cat
that comes at night
to lie on my bed
and also wants
...

My blue bike thunders
below me
and cars and trucks
flashes by.
...