Dreams For October Month Poem by Gert Strydom

(for Annelize, after Etienne Van Heerden)

Darling with the prospect of huge disorder,
or even greater racial hatred and oppression,
even revolution or chaos that are going to burst loose
of people assailing each other because I do love you
or want to get a blade into me like Allesandro de Medici,
or want to castrate me like Peter Abelard
I do want to love you with passion and grow to love you even more

even if a church domination do come in revolt
and do speak out their holy self-righteous vengeance on me,
do ask God for the earth to swallow me,
even if people go to witchdoctors to curse me
and do send out tikoloshes and werewolves
or demons as black-warriors or harpies direct out of hell do appear
where nobody but you and I
can understand this love,
that love does come selfless and yet unconditional.

Darling, with the pain and chaos of Africa's bloody savannas,
where people do kill nations and predators do hunt others,
with the murders and death and torture on farms and in the cities,
with the robbery of a culture, language and everything that is precious
including property and heirlooms that are priceless,
with the robbery and hijacking of cars
and minibus taxi's that drive people off the road,
with the lost dreams of world journeys to distant places
and the decline of this country into a trash-heap
I do ask you to live with me.

Come stand at my side in the battle of love
as the blood is already flowing wherever I do go,
there is blood on the streets,
ignorance that do lead to hellish accidents,
when the power is cut off, when spanners do fall into nuclear power stations,
when trains do collide with each other and cars and busses,
when the jet engines of aircraft in flight do fall out of them
and lift your fist into the air and hold them high and scream
that we can also find a place in the sun
and be my place of tranquillity in a country where there is no peace,
until I pour everything that I am and myself into you
and this love does become eternal

[Reference: "Drome uit Oktober" (Dreams our of October)by Etienne Van Heerden.]