Conversation
Dad, I believe that you are resting where you are
that you are unaware of everything
as if you are only sleeping
but sometimes it feels
as if you are aware of my whole life,
then I wish that you could read my verses
as you were living for Afrikaans
and it was as if poems were in your blood
and I am wondering what you would have thought,
would have said as I am writing
every poem in English as well,
that it is the Scottish blood running true?
Sometimes when I see lightning bolts
trailing white blue down to earth,
getting the smell, almost like sulphur
where a thunderbolt falls
I am unafraid form being a child
and it’s as if I hear the voice of God
as if you are also near
like when I was a toddler
taking my hand in yours
and then I could not comprehend
that they were putting you in the cold earth,
it was if you had just left by your own will
which is a really strange thing
as you were truly in love with mom,
loved me and my younger brother
as if you would give your life for us
and when I go to your grave in the hillocks
at Heidelberg, at times I am dumb
as if an old pain
comes into my heart
and again I want to
walk into the hillocks with you
to gather protea flowers for mom
to give them to her in a glass vase
to together stand on the porch
while lightning bolt after lightning bolts
falls exploding form the sky,
to get the smell
of the first drops that are falling.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
While the storm outside is quieting down [2]
While the storm outside is quieting down
the last lightning bolts falls slamming
sounding like canon shots,
you are busy peeling an orange
and from fright you hand stops still
while we listen to the voice of the God.
While the storm outside is quieting down
the last lightning bolts falls slamming,
I polish the my pair of glasses,
you are again peeling in thin orange strips
that folds around your hand when you remember something
as if something has walked over your grave you are shuddering
while the storm outside is quieting down.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Cornfield
I see the young green buds
and smell the rain falling on fruitful ground
somewhere in the distance there are thunderbolts
that every now and then falls, explodes and branch.
A long forgotten summer still stays with me
and the glow of your bright blue eyes
where in the shade of a big old oak tree
we had a picnic next to this cornfield,
the rain that suddenly falls from a cloudless sky,
lightning bolts that ominous get closer and closer
and you and me running like elated children
in the cornfield
to the shelter of the shed
and like naughty children
embrace against each other
but here life has also passed me
and what I have of you, is only memories,
a grave where I sometimes put flowers
and sometimes it’s as if you
are still invisible keeping near to me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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I Am From Heidelberg With Its Sugar Bush Hillocks
I am from Heidelberg with its sugar bush hillocks
and cannot remove the memories
from childhood days from my thoughts;
still I see open protea flowers waiting on bees,
with their smell that lingers in the air,
and I am caught by aloes
that fills the hillocks with their orange-red colour,
and in the late afternoons I find the shadows that the hillocks throw
and when the jacarandas in the city bloom,
when the garden in my yard is full of flowers,
when I find comfort at the fireplace in winter
then my thoughts keep going back
and even when my darling looks great-eyed at me
(whom I adore with my heart and soul)
and my friends that visit constantly
I cannot remove the city which is always crowding into life
and although our house of stone and brick
exists as if it will remain eternally,
where it's bordered by palisades like a fortress,
protected by electric wires
when the city's end suddenly comes,
when by man destruction
or a nuclear accident suddenly occurs
I will return to Heidelberg with its sugar bush hillocks.
poem by Gert Strydom
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The Lightning
I am lightning
A light here then gone
I am lightning
A flash quick and strong
I am lightning
My life to short to tell
I am lightning
The ground scorched where I fell
I am lightning
I never strike in twos
I am lightning
I shatter your light's fuse
I am lightning
Destroying what I touch
I am lightning
And I live as such
A storm has come upon me
The lightning I am strong
The rain falls around me
Makes my arc trails long
I fall from the heavens
Crashing to the earth
Though your call it beckons
I cannot stay by hearth
Though the fire warms me
I'm gone to fast to tell
Though the air, it fights me
I ring true the bell
This ground I've hit before
If not here then there
But it is the same ground
If not the same exchange
The moment I can stand
I'm tossed back to the sky
On the ground I'll never be
Not till the day I die
poem by John Dillenger II
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Summer thunder storm
The air is full of swallows
cross it up and down
and the late afternoon is humid
and thunderclouds hang heavy.
Lightning bolts falls clapping
out of black clouds
and there’s a cold wind
that blows for a while.
Big drops buzz down
and the road steam
while water fall down in buckets
and the fresh smell
of rain and sand
is everywhere.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Poem on my birthday
I see lightning bolts hammer-flaming down
before the rain
falls down in force like drops of hail
and on my forty seventh year
under a white hot sun
while the autumn is already busy
to skeleton at places around me,
rays burst through the steel grey clouds
while the storm subsides right there
swallows, finches and sparrows
flying up and down are calling
and some are sitting a lamppost full
and it feels as if my life’s cloak
is starting to unravel
and the cotton thread of it is thinning out
until it is almost worn through
and then you come
to decently wish me well
and it’s as if everything round me changes
to fit into this scene
and suddenly life is open and free
while we embrace
and I smell the freshness around us
and look deep
into your loving eyes.
[Reference: Poem on his birthday by Dylan Thomas.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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I want to go to the highveld
I want to go to the highveld,
go and stand next to the green hillocks
and see how aloes
hit red sparks out of it.
I want to look up into the thin blue sky,
at night look at the bright stars
as if I can pick Orion and the sisters
and like marbles stroke my hand over them.
I want to walk in the red sand,
tread barefoot tracks
and even if the sand burns my feet
I want to leave marks that betray my presence.
When the thunderstorms arise
I want to see lightning bolts breaking on iron rocks,
see blue sparks spraying over the rocks
and hear the roaring clap as if God Himself is speaking with me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Thunder Touched (Cavatina Sequence)
There is a place with scorched molten earth
near some hillocks
where blue lightning lashes repeatedly
and there it knocks
anything that it can find with its fire,
where some big rocks
draws it somehow on that much higher ground,
that is cleared from anything around.
The sky was ominous grey and brooding,
intensely black
while static or maybe fear made hairs rise,
we did turn back
while some rain, bird egg size hail drilled down;
under attack
of great blue-white thunder that was falling
with a mighty whipping roaring blue sting.
Just in time we reached some safe cover,
we were drenched
while bolts of blue thunder fell threatening,
in fear clenched
were the fingers of both her tiny hands,
as if wrenched
the muscles of her arms moved in pain
while thunder lashed again and again.
Blue-white blazing light fell on closed lids;
her inner eye
remembered decimating scorching
from some times by,
when medical staff unleashed a bolt
let fury fly,
torching some synapses of her own mind,
experimenting they acted unkind.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Thunderbolt
As a child I saw lightning
making blue sparks
on the back porch
and running over the iron rocks
into the old house against the hillock.
I could smell the thunderbolts
and it smacked down, much louder
than a gun
and as a small child
lightning did not scare me
and I walked in the rain
in a thunderstorm.
Until a day
where cattle fell dead around me
and then I got the real significance
of thunder
and now they press a thunderbolt
right into your head
and you are belted down
by people with white coats
who look very clinical,
who look at you from a distance
when they press a lever
who look at your fear and disconcertment
without feeling
and I see that you are still alive
and breathing,
when they push the lever again
and suddenly yesterday is gone
and your brain burnt out by half
and you can remember almost nothing
of your childhood days
and they believe
that you are halfway cured
and there’s a hell of a pain
that I see in your eyes.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Everything is going to be wet
Every day rain falls down
from the overcast grey sky
and lightning bolts
flash blue white
like the fingers
of the gods
caressing the earth
while the leaves of autumn
cover every tree
in auburn, yellow and brown.
Green leaves on the stems
of big pink hollyhocks
here and there
dip up and down
when hit by drops of rain
as if suddenly coming alive
and it’s going to be
a wet winter
and probably
not all that chilly
with rain falling
out of season.
The grass is green
and everything but trees
are growing
as if it’s still spring.
and flowers bloom
on geraniums, roses, hollyhocks,
lilies, irises and petunias
in colours ranging
from white, orange, yellow,
violet to red and blue
and without covering
everything is going
to be wet.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Lightning Bolt
Lightning has a property to complicate
The ground as it smacked the air with its tail.
The tail of a dragon has arrived and each eye is seen
By the people far below.
You have a reason for this guile
You lightning bolt!
Lightning cracks after a tennis match
Or else it flakes from space and enters the race.
You see bolts of energy where you go,
And nothing to keep us alive.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Thunder And Lightning
I thought that you thought that we thought we were bound to each other,
But it's not that way, we don't care about one another.
Thunder and lightning showed me all the threats you weren't saying.
Thunder and lightning; gonna throw it all away
Thunder and lightning, and you touched my life without warning.
Oh, how i loved you; you loved me; now, what are we thinking?
Thunder and lightning will burn you just as sure as i'm singing.
Thunder and lightning; didn't know our love would end this way.
You got your way, we're to blame, but that's o.k.;
Another time, another place, it's one more game.
After all is said and done, we'll overcome
The psychological setback of a time on the run.
It hurt to see you play games that were so one-sided.
I dealt the cards but the aces were in your back pocket.
Thunder and lightning won't let you alone 'til i'm paying.
Thunder and lightning; didn't know our love could end this way.
song performed by by Chicago
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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For my Persian cat in autumn
Curled up he lays in the last bit of summer sun
that falls in the autumn,
he sometimes scale the chestnut tree
of which the stripped branches
grabs at the dull blue sky
to stretch himself out on the roof of the garage,
where he continually licks at his ginger coat
and when unexpectedly a thunderstorm arises
he lies on the porch curled up in a bundle,
looking at the falling drops
until a bolt of lightning falls on the paving in front of him,
where he looks startled at the bang
and with big golden eyes
that almost draws close does call.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Thunder & Lightning
I thought that you thought that we thought we were bound to each other,
But its not that way, we dont care about one another.
Thunder and lightning showed me all the threats you werent saying.
Thunder and lightning; gonna throw it all away
Thunder and lightning, and you touched my life without warning.
Oh, how I loved you; you loved me; now, what are we thinking?
Thunder and lightning will burn you just as sure as Im singing.
Thunder and lightning; didnt know our love would end this way.
You got your way, were to blame, but thats o.k.;
Another time, another place, its one more game.
After all is said and done, well overcome
The psychological setback of a time on the run.
It hurt to see you play games that were so one-sided.
I dealt the cards but the aces were in your back pocket.
Thunder and lightning wont let you alone til Im paying.
Thunder and lightning; didnt know our love could end this way.
song performed by by Chicago
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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That Rain
Thunder starts rolling in
As it fell from the skys
Rain
Oh how it knows me so
As I stand underneath it
While I welcomed it with wide open arms
With my head facing the lightning bolts up ahead
The rain drops upon my face
Like welcoming kisses
As the thunder roared louder than the mightiest lion
As the lightning bolts lit up the sky brighter than Vegas itself
I twirled in the rain
Not caring who saw
In that rain
That rain I welcomed ever so
That rain which had the softest touch I had ever felt
poem by Storm Pedersen
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Feeling The Season
Fat summer and small season,
Sounds of water make noise;
Close your eyes to the sound
Of innumerable utterances
From the branches of our trees
In a garden that understands
That life is more than just a season.
Fat villages walk along a path of disgust,
Dust is a yawn, dirt is a solution of course.
The sky begins to repel us with its fracture,
The bolts go highly rewarding with noise,
And noise with more violence, the solution.
Lightning is a solution, lightning bolts!
poem by Naveed Akram
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Crack The Sky
the thunder outside
echoing across this land,
a voice of reason across insane minds
and stable hearts
the lightning crack
that tears the sky,
as if thousands of screaming voices
lamenting their tormentations in hell,
they split the sky
a crack a bolt a jolt
of thunderous lightning
Zap to the soul what youth has lost
and rewrite our chemistry
filling the blood with seeping hot plasma,
oh lightning you crack the sky
and bring about the new
it's raining, it's raining,
oh it's raining
and the lightning splits the sky
a crack a bolt a jolt
of thunderous applause,
as the kingdoms of man go out of style
and the retrocity of our species
begins a new,
it's raining, it's raining,
oh it is raining,
and the lightning cracks the sky
so that one day we will know to fly.
poem by David Thomas
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Blitz Of Lightning
When its nice and easy
He can handle the fear
He thought he was burning
With all the pain he had
Then his smile was gone
He didnt know where he was
Cant you hear him cry
This time he is alive
Hes out to seek and find
To find his own style in time
No more retreat but fight
So be aware and watch the night, watch the night
Hello world, here I am
Dont you fool me again
Im like a blitz of lightning
So get outta my way
Every night and day
The lightning strikes again
Then he came to the point
He could believe in his life
A different soul was born
He must no more deny
But he wants to forget
His old rotten desires
No more pain - no more cries
All those things are behind
Hes out to seek and find
To find his own style in time
No more retreat but fight
So be aware and watch the night, watch the night
Hello world, here I am
Dont you fool me again
Im like a blitz of lightning
So get outta my way
Every night and day
The lightning strikes again
Hello world, here I go
Dont fool me, oh no
Im like a rolling thunder
The storys been told
And my blood runs cold
It wont be all the same
It will never be the same again
Hello world, here I am
Dont you fool me again
Im like a blitz of lightning
So get outta my way
Every night and day
The lightning strikes again
Hello world, here I go
Dont fool me, oh no
Im like a rolling thunder
Now the die is cast
Chances are vast
It wont be all the same
Hello world, here I am
Dont you fool me again
Im like a blitz of lightning
The storys been told
And my blood runs cold
It wont be all the same
Hello world...
song performed by by U. D. O.
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ballade Of The Headless Man
(after A.G. Visser)
On a distant road through some hillocks
a young Boer greets his pretty wife
and the robust man
holds her against him for a moment.
Choir:
In the sky there’s a moon
hanging sickle,
when I pass the bottom of a cliff
where I notice a man on his horse biting at its bridle.
Later when the weather gets cloudy
and bolts of blue lightning fall like shots about me
something happens that can take away a brave man’s courage
before the first drops of rain come down like gunshots.
When the hoofs of a horse thunder past
while a church bell rings of midnight in the distance
and nobody still walks around in the streets,
when the doors of most of the houses are locked,
there’s something unearthly
that stands straight up in the stirrups.
Just a glace when another thunderbolt crashes down
is so frightening that I almost loose my faith
when I look at the horse and its rider
and that thunder crashes sinister
while a headless man leans forward
as he passes at a hell of a speed
while he fires his rifle that his fingers is clinging onto
and at a old dilapidated ruin near to me
there’s a women in white spectre form
whose shrill voice cuts through the night,
screaming at the passing horseman:
“Can nothing stop you? Jan van der Meer? ”
[References: “Die ruiter van Skimmelperdpan” (The horseman of Skimmelperdpan by A.G. Visser and “At a pan at night” by Gert Strydom. This poem is based on a myth of a horseman that had been decapitated by canon fire during the second Anglo-Boer war.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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First rain
The past winter had come
with black ripe
and had turned the green grass,
even the flowers into dead,
yellow withered things
but now in this early spring,
rain was showering the earth
with thousands of kisses,
bringing back life
and the sweet smell
drifted up from the wet sand
as if something great
had come forth
out of the creator’s hand
and later a rainbow
with brilliant colours
stretched from horizon to horizon
against the dark black clouds
while in the distance
lightning bolts were crashing down
one after another
and in my imagination
I could already see
tender shoots sprouting.
poem by Gert Strydom
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