Emily Hobhouse
I
How suddenly you changed a moment
from what it was before
and you had a kind of talent
to change everything, improving it
and bit by bit
the pain and suffering was no more.
II
Tending with caring hands
you brought a kind of refuge
to women and children
in British concentration camps
during the Anglo-Boer war
even defying arrest and deportation.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Grieve England
Grieve, England, and hang your head
in utter shame,
as the tale of your inhumanity
rings to this very day.
Grieve about your fallen brave, England,
for no glory did your heroes bring
back from the battlefields of South Africa,
where they killed children
who did not want to betray
the whereabouts of their fathers.
What glory shines
in pillage and rape
and how does lament ring,
with the utter destruction
of farmsteads of a nation?
Grieve about the soulless slaughter, England,
of most of a nation’s women
and children in your cruel concentration camps,
where you fed glass mixed with meal
and let thousands of the innocent die of pestilence.
Cry, England, and hang your head
in utter shame,
as the tale of your inhumanity
rings forever more.
[Reference: => To the Anglo-Boer war where thousands of innocent woman and children died in British concentration camps.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Blockhouses had been erected right over the country
Blockhouses had been erected right over the country,
farms had been entered and burnt to the ground,
Livestock and animals had been slaughtered
and women and children were rounded up
and interned into death camps.
Young boys
were set against white walls
and firing squads
was set against them
and a super power
clenched its fist around this country
and stood gigantic
against every Boer farmer.
l’Envoi
That time will be forever black
in history
with the misdeeds of the British
that is well known
and the ruination of a nation, arousing from it
where women and children perished as targets
at the commands of Horatio Herbert Kitchener.
[Note: My own great grandmother died in a British concentration camp and my great grandfather was sent by the British to St. Helena as a prisoner of war and as a result of this, my grandfather(Gert Strydom) grew up in a orphanage.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Gideon Scheepers
There’s a Boer commandant
that proofs himself at Magersfontein
and help to beat the British there
and at Paardeberg on horseback,
rides right through them
and they cannot touch him.
When his commando
enters the Cape Colony
rail tracts are blown away
and British trains stand and wait
and there are many Cape Boers
that joins him
to fight against
the overwhelming British might.
The British give guns
to the black population
and send them to farmsteads
to murder women and children
and to rape
and to Gideon Scheepers it’s more than enough
and it hits him like a hammer blow
and every black man
that his commando catches carrying a firearm
is hanged.
Then it happens
that the British find Gideon Scheepers
lying ill in the field
and they execute him
and somewhere in the field
he is pushed into an unmarked grave
and even today
nobody knows where
Gideon Scheepers lies.
[References: The rank of Commandant is equivalent to that of Lieutenant-Colonel. The heroic story of Gideon Scheepers during the second Anglo-Boer war.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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The British descended
The British descended
on the Transvaal and Orange Free State
from their island
on the other side of the sea
and in thousands
they came to ruin the land.
The British descended
on the Transvaal and Orange Free State
and from the sea they came
and an entire empire
send its soldiers to destroy,
to pillage and scorch the earth,
to rape, and imprison
the women and children
of the Afrikaner nation.
My great grandfathers rode on horseback to war,
with Christiaan De Wet, Cronje
and De La Rey
and they fought hard pressed,
to drive the British
and soldiers from all her colonies away.
My great grandfathers rode on horseback to war
and landed in prisoner of war camps in St. Helena
and although the second Anglo-Boer war was lost
and the Afrikaner nation paid the highest cost
in the destruction of the land,
the death of men
and the murder of innocent women and children,
a time came
that once more we were free.
My great grandfathers rode on horseback to war,
but one was from and with the enemy
and a highlander was he
and a more decent man
is still hard to find
and one that hated the English
for the dreadfull things that they did,
at times I see the restored Martini Henri rifles
taken from the British
during that bitter war
and the legacy and great spirit,
of my great grandfathers
still stays with me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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1899-1902 (Cavatina Sequence) (In Answer To A. E. Housman)
From the Orange Free State to the Transvaal
farms and towns burn,
from concentration camps women, children,
do not return,
up in the hillocks European farmers fight;
not taciturn
Emily Hobhouse does expose some ills,
many innocents the British do kill.
Hard driven men who read the word of God
fight very brave,
hear the British sing their God save their Queen;
they cannot save
some twenty thousand women and children,
but they do crave
for freedom and for a place of their own,
are forced to swear loyal to the crown.
After that bitter war they have to sing
'God save the queen, '
return to decimated farms and towns,
their pain unseen,
impoverished they make a living,
for peace are keen;
to today their kinsmen do not forget,
in God's record His punishment is set.
poem by Gert Strydom
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The Anglo Boer war
When that wimp of a Englishman
called Cecil John Rhodes
decided that he wanted gold,
that the diamonds in his pockets
was not enough
he wanted to see that British Union Jack flutter,
over the whole of Southern Africa
to his queen he went
to enchant her patriotic soul
to claim the Orange Free State
and Transvaal Republics as British territories
to sent three thousand
Christian farmers to their deaths,
to burn farmsteads down to the ground,
to throw salt in the lands,
to slaughter every animal there,
to murder twenty thousand women
and children
in concentration camps
and to loose twenty eight thousand
of the queen’s own as killed, as dead
shot through the heart, shot through the head.
[Note: My own great grandmother died in a British concentration camp and my great grandfather was sent by the British to St. Helena as a prisoner of war and as a result of this, my grandfather grew up in a orphanage.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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A Different Kind Of Christmas
But somehow there's a sadness in the song
In our hearts we know that something's wrong
Chorus:
It's a different kind of Christmas
In a different kind of world
Even though it looks the same
Everything has changed
It's a different kind of Christmas
Children opening gifts with wonder and surprise
I wish that I could still see through such innocent eyes
I used to feel so safe inside I had a place to run and hide
In my daddy's arms I felt secure
No one can protect us anymore
Chorus:
It's a different kind of Christmas
In a different kind of world
Even though it looks the same
Everything has changed
It's a different kind of Christmas
Sending cards that talk of peace and love and cheer
Oh that's what we need if we'd only believe
It would be!
Chorus:
It's a different kind of Christmas
In a different kind of world
Even though it looks the same
Everything has changed
It's a different kind of Christmas
song performed by by LeAnn Rimes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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From pools of blood
From pools of blood bushes, trees
and aloes grow in the veldt
where British soldiers
fired on my countrymen
and some bayoneted them.
Concentration camps where twenty thousand
women and children died without dignity
at the hand of foreigners,
who claimed to be fellow Christians
are now covered with grass
and that past are being blotted out
as if the misery, the indignity,
the mass murder
never happened
and great Queen Victoria
is still dignified
and still I hold Great Britain responsible
for the murder of my great grand mother,
for the destruction
of my great grand father’s farm,
for the seizure
of my other great grand father’s property,
for sending him to St. Helena
as a prisoner of war,
for invading my country
for making profit from the minerals
and the quarter Scotsman in me
together with my three quarters Afrikaner parts
forever wants to be free
from the enslavement
which that foreign nation brought.
[Note: My own great grandmother died in a British concentration camp and my great grandfather was sent by the British to St. Helena as a prisoner of war and as a result of this, my grandfather(Gert Strydom) grew up in a orphanage.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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In front of a firing squad
Japie almost burns himself
when he mess some coffee
and it’s still dark,
when at four o’clock one morning
British soldiers arrive
at the Greyling’s farm.
There’s an Afrikaner farm boy
standing against the wall
of a farm house
and English Captain Jack Seeley,
wants to know to where
his father’s Boer commando is going?
Japie Greyling refuses
to say anything about it
and Jack Seeley
order his men,
to aim at an Afrikaner boy.
Six British Martini Henri rifles
are pointed at a ten year old child
and he hears gunlock after gunlock
closing behind a bullet.
I ask you a last time
says the relentless Englishman
and a Boer boy
looks into death,
but still there’s nothing
that he lets out about his people
The British Captain keeps
walking nervously up and down
and the blue eyes
of a Boer boy,
cuts right through him
and the child says
let death then come,
but talk I wont.
All the British soldiers
are astounded by the courage
that comes from an Afrikaner child
and on command,
the rifles are lowered
before they ride away
and Japie Greyling
is left alive.
[References: Historic heroic story of Japie (Jacobus Johannes Cornelis) Greyling during the second Anglo-Boer war. The poem “Japie Greyling” by J.F.E Celliers. The book “Fear and Be Slain” by Jack Seeley.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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A brave Field Cornet
From a hillock
two Boer commandoes
ride into an English camp
and a few of the British are shot,
a lot are caught
and most flee away.
In the direction of the Tuli river
the enemy are followed in haste
where they join comrades
driving a ox wagon
and the Boers are marksmen
and the English flee again
to find shelter in a farmhouse.
The house is shot to pieces
and for the third time on one day
the British flee again
and the next day,
the Boer commando captures nine wagons
with food and ammunition.
The day following Boer scouts
find an abandoned enemy camp
with burned out fires,
tents, horses and mules
and see a big cloud of dust
coming along in their direction.
There’s a Field Cornet
that does not ride away,
while two Boer commandos
escapes to safety.
At dusk Jacobus Potgieter
finds more men with a canon
set on a hillock
and with just more than twenty men,
he prepares
to give resistance to a huge enemy force.
The darker the night gets,
the nearer the cloud of dust comes
and Jacobus Potgieter and his men
are ready to shoot killing shots
and to let no Englishmen past them
and there’s a rambling sound,
but no enemy appear
and they are invaded
by a swarm of locusts.
[Reference: The “JJ Potgieter manuscript.” Second Anglo-Boer war. Boer commando= A group of Boer farmers in a citizen force militia under a Commandant (Lieutenant-Colonel) .]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Salmon Van As
On a night just as the moon is rising
a British officer comes by horse with a white flag
and the rifle barrels of the Boers follow him,
as they are on guard at the front post.
Evening after evening he comes
and sometimes rides past in a cloud of dust
where he is spying on their positions
and tries to lead them astray with his chattering.
With words that by now they know:
“No nation will win against us.
Surrender tonight,
as you have already lost the war.”
On a hillock Salmon van As is at the front post
and something creaks below him in the trees and bushes
where he is standing with his Mauser rifle at the ready
and he knows of the atrocities of this Englishman
where with a thunder clap he shoots at him.
Some black men run back to the British camp
to tell the story of the shot,
where a red headed major stamps his feet in anger
and swears to God to take revenge.
Convinced of his own innocence Salmon van As
stays openly on his own farm,
where he goes on with his life in Heidelberg
and just after the peace of Vereniging,
when it fits the British,
they insist on his arrest.
He is brought before a military court
where he is not given any chance to defend himself,
as probably he would have succeeded in his own defence
and the British officer says his final say.
At daylight the Lee Metford rifles of the British soldiers fire
and like Gideon Scheepers there’s a Boer that falls,
a Boer citizen is murdered by the British
and in the cliff a thorn tree on his grave still tells that story.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Some Kind Of Friend
Music by Barry Manilow
Lyrics by Adrienne Anderson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I saw you at the Beechwood Cafe
You looked at me and then you looked away
That was some kind
Some kind of friend you turned out to be
You said you had places that you had to be
Now who is gonna be there for me
That was some kind
Some kind of friend you turned out to be
Lady that was some kind
Some kind of friend you turned out to be
Baby that was some kind
Some kind of friend you turned out to be
They say that women like you can't get enough
Got your Maserati built for two
They say that women like you like to play
with love
Is that true?
When I ran into you the other day
You smiled at me but you had nothing to say
That was some kind
Some kind of friend you turned out to be
Tell me why'd you do what you did to me
Covered up your life so I couldn't see
Now that was some kind
Some kind of friend you turned out to be
Lady that was some kind
Some kind of friend you turned to be
Baby that was some kind
Some kind of friend you turned out to be
I never should have let you get to me
Nevershould have let you bring me down
Didn't know that I was just some fantasy
That you found.
song performed by by Barry Manilow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Visionary Nicolaas Pieter Johannes Van Rensburg
Some people
view visionary Van Rensburg similar
to Nostradamus,
but most do not even know
about this remarkable, humble
and religious man.
During the second Anglo-Boer war
he was to the Boers
a true prophet from God
and both commandant-generals Christiaan De Wet
and Koos De La Rey as well as president Steyn
consulted him for advice.
They were generals
who humiliated the British
time and time again
with daring tactics
and who were never captured.
His mother taught him
about the Bible
from being small
and as a child
while he herded sheep,
he took the Bible along.
He made more than seven hundred
predictions of which
some he could interpret correctly
and the meaning of others
was beyond him.
His warnings to Boer commandos
came true literary
and he predicted
Boer farmsteads burning
and women and children
being killed.
Long in advance
he predicted the First World War,
the flue epidemic
and even went to Lichtenburg
to warn general De La Rey
of his impending death.
Some writers believe
that the events in Zimbabwe,
the fall of European governments,
and the war between Islam
and the United States
have being predicted by him.
Even Koeberg nuclear power station
blowing up near Cape Town,
which he predicted
may be impending,
if the current maintenance of it
where faulty workmanship
lead to a turbine blowing,
is considered.
Neither can his predictions
of a South African civil war
or a coming worldwide war
be taken lightly.
poem by Gert Strydom
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The Safe House
Thank God for a way to escape from the shadows
A refuge where battered women rebuild their tomorrows…
The undisclosed location is free from violent threats
It is a place where women wake without cold sweats
Thank God for a caring staff who was there to guide
People who worked in a place to protect and provide…
Caring people with kind quantities and an angelic heart
Volunteers played with kids... enabling fear to depart
Thank God for the guidance that was given each day
One step at a time, starting to heal and say I’ll be okay
Giving women the confidence to breathe and reorganize
Reassurance gave strength to overcome and revitalize
Thank God for the wonderful women I met in this sanctuary
They had a common trait; bravely doing what was necessary
I recognized myself in each pillar of hope wanting to survive
Mental bruises were visible; we were all glad to be alive
Thank God I had an opportunity to meet these women of worth
Women with varied backgrounds from the corners of the earth...
We lived together and shared caring for young children
With compassion we listened to one another over and over again
Thank God for the strength I gained from the buoyancy of friends
We were not isolated cases; we became a family with dividends
Saying our good byes with embraces, we knew we were all related
I fondly recall the brave woman whose self-respect was reinstated
poem by Theresa Ann Moore
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Commandant Gideon Scheepers
They tried to send him to hell,
as if he was one of them,
a traitor, a rebel.
The British killed a captured ill man,
that they came across in the veldt
without decency, or any military law being honoured.
They shot a Boer commandant through the heart
and without a funeral note,
they hurried, to get him buried.
A brave man devoted
to his country, to his God,
whose burial place was not noted.
Turning sod after sod
with spades, they dumped him
in a unmarked grave
in the dead of night
without using light
they threw ground upon his chest,
laid him to rest without any honour
and left him alone
without a marking stone.
[References: The rank of Commandant is equivalent to that of Lieutenant Colonel. The heroic story of Gideon Scheepers during the second Anglo-Boer war, who was captured while being ill in the veldt as a normal combatant, but treated like a rebel and shot by the British, who buried him in a unmarked hole in the ground.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Jakobus Le Grange Marais (a reply to Christopher Hope)
One early evening while waiting for a train
I walked into an old station bar,
to buy a cold cider to kill a thirst
in the sweltering
thirty degree Celsius summer heat
and saw a very old cripple man
who nursed a glass of white wine
and he was talking to himself
and sometimes stuttered over his words.
When he looked up at me
there was fire in his eyes
and it was almost as if
he recognized me, from a dream
or a prophecy of something
and suddenly his face was calm
while he called me over for a chat
and I ordered a bottle of brandy for him
and another Hunters Gold for me.
He complained that the times were cruel
with one hand motioning to his missing legs
that he had lost in a train crash
and complained about Afrikaners
ignoring each other
and only living for themselves
while the nation is being led astray
and then suddenly said but my boy,
you know this,
have experienced it yourself
as a learned man without a job
but let me tell you something
about days long gone
even before the Boer war
(where the British killed
women and children in concentration camps) ,
many Afrikaner farmers
were executed at Slagtersnek
and it had been a terrible, terrible time
and then that holy Englishman John Phillip
meddled in our affairs
and now he haunts us again
peering in at the window panes
and I shook my head, did not understanding
exactly what the old man said
and heard something about
English people being in cahoots
with the current government
and ladies ruling as bosses
while educated Afrikaner men are jobless
and he swayed on his stool
and I rose to steady him
when he said to pour more brandy with ice
and complained that now nobody
is keeping the impis at bay
and pointed a finger at me
and I thought that he said
but you will do, or maybe
you haven’t got a clue
and leaning forward
strangely his breath was clear
and I heard him stuttering something
sounding like even uncle Paul
in church square knows
that soon all Afrikaner men
will be poor
and I said to him:
“My man we already are
with the new black regime,
but most Afrikaners
just do not realise it yet.”
He smiled at me then
and steadily held his glass, in a final salute
brought it to his lips
and faded into the naught
de-materializing in front of me.
[Reference: Kobus Le Grange Marais by Christopher Hope.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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I Was Raised by Poem
I was raised by soul food cooking.
Talking while eating
come on down an get your self a plate
Kind of women.
'girl laid back and let me braid your'
Sorta women
Some longlegged, shortlegged
Kind of women.
Dark brown, hip shaking
Miniskirt wearing
' I know I look fine tonight'
Sorta women
Some coffee sipping
Not getting married to soon
Better say yes sir
To him type of brother
Some hip shaking, leg swinging
Kind of women
Singing loud
Type of sisiter
Some hands swinging
Hands on hips
' Don't mess with my baby'
Type of women
Some writing
World traveling Type of queens
My family raised me
poem by Courtney Jones
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Change The Locks
I changed the lock on my front door
So you cant see me anymore
And you cant come inside my house
And you cant lie down on my couch
I changed the lock on my front door
I changed the number on my phone
So you cant call me up at home
And you cant say those things to me
That make me fall down on my knees
I changed the nunmber on my phone
Cause I changed the kind of car I drive
So you cant see me when I go by
And you cant chase me up the street
And you cant knock me off of my feet
I changed the kind of car I drive
I changed the kind of clothes I wear
So you cant find me anywhere
You cant spot me in a crowd
And you cant call my name out loud
I changed the kind of clothes I wear
I changed the tracks underneath the train
So you cant find me ever again
And you cant trace my path
And you cant hear me laugh
And honey Im laughing all the time
I changed the name of this town
So you cant follow me down
And you cant touch me like before
And you cant make me want you more
I changed the name of this town
I changed the lock on my front door
I changed the number on my phone
I changed the kind of car I drive
I changed the kind of clothes I wear
I changed the tracks underneath the train
I changed the name of this town
I changed the name of this town
I changed the name of this town
song performed by by Tom Petty
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It is women who bear the race in bloody agony. Suffering is a kind of horror. Blood is a kind of horror. Women are born with horror in their very bloodstream. It is a biological thing.
quote by Bela Lugosi
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I guess I just don't have a talent for it, some women just aren't the marrying kind - or anyway, not the permanent marrying kind, and I'm one of them.
quote by Jane Wyman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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