Ballade Of The Grey City Poem by Gert Strydom

(after S. J. Pretorius)

How very lonely it is in the city
where rain does sieve down for weeks
and the roads full of strangers are wet,
with a windblown man on the bench of a park
that unemployed haven not got any relief
do watch his last cents for bread.

Chorus:
Still you will find that here some people do still pray to God
do sit in church benches on Saturdays and Sundays,
do trust that He does constantly keep His hand over their lot,
do try and follow Him sincerely while to others it does seem inane,
where some others only do come to brag with their wives and cars
and in the portal and outside they laugh out loud over any nonsense.

How excessively jolly, without values and self-focussed
young people do dance in the city at the places of fun,
some are from drugs somewhat shaky
while you will notice from crude humanity some inclinations
where they do touch, feel and kiss each other
and go to the toilets to do their thing.

How terrible the people are in this city
where married couples do together hold sexual parties,
do drop keys in a hat and each man does take a key from it,
do then fold his hand around that of another man's wife
at a huge mansion where the most expensive cars do stand outside
and people do only exist for their own pleasure and profit.

How cruel animals are caged in concrete and steel,
where small apes do constantly insane shout at each other,
where the zoo does draw the inhabitants of the city to this imprisonment
with the tiger, the leopard and the cruel lion
and then they still do talk about preserving
as if like this they are saving the lives of the animals.

How inaccessible it's for workers from the Aurora goldmine
to loose their houses and everything and to sit on the street
where the two new black owners had for ten months not paid them,
did disappear with the money
and nobody does anything about this
when those people do loose all hope and take suicide
and the local newspaper does overflow with this.

How extradited are human beings when the casualty doors do swing open
and doctors and nurses do wait upon you with forms and papers
when an ambulance does drop you for something deadly at a hospital
as if they do regard profit higher than the emergency situation
or at the Far East-Rand Hospital you do get no treatment for fifteen hours
where you do wait with a huge crowd in a row.

[Reference: "Grou mure" (Grey walls)by S. J. Pretorius.]

© Gert Strydom