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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Related quotes
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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Queen Victoria
When little Victoria played
at the lake in Claremont Gardens
as a child long before she became queen,
did she capture a large swallowtail butterfly
from a reed and then pulled off its golden
and black veined wings
or was she then, innocent of such a thing?
When little Victoria played
at the lake in Claremont Gardens
as a child long before she became queen,
did she trample the flowers
pulling the white and yellow water lilies
out of the lake
or was she then, innocent of such a thing?
When little Victoria became a powerful queen
did her government go to war
against the Orange Free State
and Transvaal Republics?
Did her soldiers force women and children
into concentration camps
where twenty thousand died?
Did her soldiers kill three thousand
Christian farmers after demolishing their farms?
And did her government loose
twenty eight thousand soldiers
of its own?
Or was she then, innocent of such things?
[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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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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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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My friend you talk about my people and me
My friend you talk
about my people and me
being equal
to Hitler and the Germans
of the Second World War,
but do not know
that I and most of us Afrikaners
treated black people
like human beings,
never lifted a hand
against one,
that I knew from being
a toddler that they were
Christians as well
when my mother
gave the money that was left
from my father’s funeral fund
for a church to be constructed
in their own community.
How I saw the effect
of the Church Street bomb
killing innocent civilians
on the street
men, women and children
from any race.
How I was forced
to go to the army
and to war
and patriotic did my duty there
to stop communists killing,
raping and robbing the future
like they did in East Germany,
Hungary in sixty-eight
and with the Portuguese
still living in Mozambique
and in Angola
when that countries
got their independence.
How in Soweto with the army
I had to stop black people
killing black people,
burning their fellow man alive
while their women were
cheering them on
and I saw man more being animals
than human beings
without having any mercy
for each other
having lost all conscience
for their cruel deeds.
You do not know
that I will not quarter
for a country
full of pirates
and not the Orlando
soccer playing type
but people who rob,
kill, maim and rape
that there’s no other escape
for Afrikaner people like me
and nowhere else to go
that I love this land
maybe more than
my forefathers did
who sacrificed
their lives for it
that my great grandfather Japie Strydom
lost his farm in the Cape colony
when as a Cape rebel
he joined the war
against the British,
was almost executed
when the war ended
was imprisoned on St. Helena,
that his wife
died in a British concentration camp
where she was fed finely grinded glass
in the flour given to her
that I want to get rid
of oppression against me
and my fellow Afrikaners
and want to have a life
like any one else.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Watching You, Watching Me, Watching You, Watching Everyone
So this is Great Britain
A green and pleasant land?
The home of CCTV Camera’s
To get speeding drivers banned
So this is Great Britain
The welfare state, & NHS
Great British Institutions?
Some think they’re in a mess
So this Is Great Britain
That once ruled the waves
An Empire and a Commonwealth?
Now issues ASBO’s if one misbehaves
So this is Great Britain
The Mother of Democracy?
The House of Commons and Lords
Ensuring justice & liberty?
So this is Great Britain
Where God saves the Queen
A land of hope & glory?
You can vote at age eighteen
So this is Great Britain
Are the pensioners in poverty?
They’ve never had it so good?
They’re all having a nice cup of tea
So this is Great Britain
A class system breeding inequality
Education, Education, Education?
Needing a dose of political honesty
So this is Great Britain
Still the mother of the free?
The police, council, & MI5
Are watching you or watching me
poem by Gordon David
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Yom HaShoa
There are things
which people never discuss,
like wickedness and destruction
and loss of humanity
that comes with hate.
It’s funny how people
loose sight of God
and declare wars in His name
and kill the innocent in office towers
and lose all humanness.
I could never understand
why like animals,
people have been kept in camps.
Even my great grandmother
died in a British concentration camp
and the names of the predecessors
of many Afrikaners,
stays written on their harts.
I see terrible photographs
of people lying like broken shop dolls,
where they are famished, molested,
embarrassed, degraded, broken and killed
and Yom HaShoa
hits mighty blows
into my soul.
Having been a soldier myself,
I wonder how warriors
could lose all humanity,
or were they only
sociopathic animals
without any honour and fame;
when they demonstrated their cruelty
in Auschwitz–Birkenau,
Buchenwald, Treblinka
and at other places.
I am a Afrikaner boer
and from Scottish decent
and my forefathers fought as boers
and rebels, against the British
and my Scottish great grandpa
stood against them.
We can go back
and trace and know our families
and somehow every body;
might be a Jew.
I sometimes wonder
from where my father’s names,
Jacob and Solomon comes
and if it is only from
the sacred book.
Still identity, integrity
and freedom
and being humane,
goes much further
than race and nationality.
In the end
everybody stands
at the feet
of the Judge and Creator;
where words and deeds
carry their own power.
[Yom HaShoa=>Holocaust Remembrance Day. With thanks to Mahdokt, for the pictures and message in her email that inspired this verse.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Father Freak (1) (Took Son's Wife And Killed Son's Daughter)
A 4-year-old daughter was murdered,
by a 45-year-old grandfather,
who had a love affair with his daughter-in-law,
who is a 23-year-old woman whose husband's heart got gnawed.
The husband found out the affair and had their marriage got undone.
The grandfather did'nt have any consideration for his son.
He admitted beating the grand-daughter to death,
stuffing his body into a suitcase and throwing into the river bed.
Murder occured in May, about 3 months ago.
3 weeks ago, her great grandmother contacted Authority for her no-
show.
Then the disappearance brought to police attention.
How could they commit a crime full of sins?
They have children of their own,
but about parental love they have never known.
The father not only robbed his son of his wife,
but also put an end to his grand-daughter's life.
There are actually some bad fathers,
who could be compared to freak Monster.
Maybe I Know My History A Little Bit Better Than You Do (In Answer To Sipho Sepamla)
Maybe I know my history
a little bit better than you do.
My friend, you are talking
about stories being heard
around coal-stoves
concerning animals
and no real facts
are expressed in your poem.
I know when my ancestor Joost Strijdom
arrived in the Cape of Good Hope in May 1678,
that I descend from the lovely brave Maryna Ras,
when your ancestors
were migrating from a place called eMbo
at the big African lakes under
leadership of chief Dlamini
and later under chief Nguni.
I know how my ancestors battled
against wild beasts, fought the zulu-impi
at Blood River
and overcame by the help of
the almighty God
and that I would not have existed
if they died at the hands of the Zulus.
I know how my ancestors build
farms, churches and houses
while yours were living
in thatched grass huts.
I know how my great grandfathers
and one of my grandfathers
was enveloped in a war against the British,
how they survived
and how my great grandmother
died in a British concentration camp.
I have even faced Cubans
under Soviet command
in the largest mechanised battle in Africa,
apart from those in the Second World War
and we had a decisive victory
that is now being denied
while history books are being rewritten
and fiction is creeping in
and maybe the new propaganda, the lies
of the new history suits you far better.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Don't Forget who is your Father
God is Great
He created you and me so ladies and gentleman
he is the only person to praise and pray
Cause some of us we pray Alan people you pray him
who is him God is the one who created us
so guys help me to Thank him every time i'm sick i call him cause
he is the hiller the killer of diseases in the world
Help me to sing.
How great is our God sing with me how great is our God
all we sing is how great is our God age to age praise his
Great great great great great
great great great great great great great
great great great great great great great
great great great great great great great great great great great
GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD..
Thank you Help me pliz.
poem by Ruvimbo Daisy Matsika
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An Old Man With His Hat
There Little Robbie found him in an old yellow album
A blurred picture of a half old man with his hat
Standing in front of the coffin
He smiles shy but wide with his teeth gone making a hole like Little Robbie when he lose his baby teeth
Little Robbie doesn’t recognize him and he wonder where he is now
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks to his big sister
But his sister doesn’t recognize him and she wonder who he is
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks to his mother
But his mother doesn’t recognize him and she wonder how he was there
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks to his father
But his father doesn’t recognize him and he wonder what he did there
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks to his uncle
But his uncle doesn’t recognize him and he wonder when the picture taken
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks hopelessly to his grandfather
His grandfather takes a deep look to that picture and wonders why Little Robbie asks
Little Robbie says, “I want to meet him! I want to know about him! I want to play with him! ”
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
But his grandfather shakes his head, “No, he is not.”
He is not one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
He is just an old man with his hat
“He accompanied your great grandfather when he sick until his death. This picture is taken in a burial of your great grandfather.”
His grandfather stares at little Robbie
“Now, are you disappointed? ”
He is not one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
He is just an old man with his hat
Little Robbie shakes his head, “No, I am not.”
Though he is not one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
Though he is just an old man with his hat
“But I still want to meet him, I want to know about him, and I want to play with him! ”
And then he could be one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Nothing Ever Last
The World's great Empires have gone to decay
They rose and they fell and each had their day
And one Super Power rise as another does fall
And the small will grow great and the great become small.
The Pharoahs and the Aztecs and the Incas as well
And the all conquering Romans too had their glorious spell
And the Spaniards and the British of the recent past
Were known to be great Empires but they too did not last.
The Soviets and Germans great power did command
But their demise not that hard to understand
Since great powers they come and great powers they go
Though nothing lasts forever as history does show.
Genghis Khan and Napoleon and Alexander the Great
These all conquering heroes had their use by date
Though in the history of the World their names living on
The Empires they ruled over like them are long gone.
Un-rivalled for supremacy as the World Super Power of today
By far the most powerful Nation is the U S of A
But as history does tell us nothing ever last
And one day they too will be a power of the past.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Father Unite Us
Today my prayer will be short and sweet for you Father has given me yet another day to stand with strength upon my feet. Father I ask only one thing in this short little prayer. I ask Father that you unite all the people of this earth as one. I ask Father that you help us to realize that we really are sisters and brothers, that we are covered by the blood of the lamb, that no one can come between us while we are holding your glorious hand. Father unite us so that we will grow strong and able to fight the enemy. Protect us Father while we stand as soldiers under your great umbrella. Let us find peace in this world Father. I leave it all to you Father for you are our great leader, you are the King, You have the ability to make great mountains crumble and to part the rough waters of the sea, you are the all knowing and the great almighty.
Father I leave this prayer for peace to you, knowing that you will know what to do.
I pray Father in the name of your precious son Jesus. Amen
Written: March 2,2008
poem by Melvina Germain
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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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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 Old Family Picture
In the old
black-and-white
family picture,
I see
great grandfather
dead drunk
with his hat
slightly skewed.
In the same old
black-and-white
family picture,
I see
grandfather
as drunk as
his father is
with his hat
also slightly skewed.
Father fools
great grandfather
and grandfather
with his rice-washed-water
as the good old home-made
Makoli.
They all believe him.
1996
poem by Sangnam Nam
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Improbable wishes
No remembrance of my great
grandfather,
Who bequeathed us a mansion.
No gratitude to my grandfather,
Who fed us with sweets and coins.
No goodwill to my grandmother,
Who left us with cash and vessels.
No gratefulness to my mother,
Whose jewels and things we shared.
No love and passion for my father
Who lives somewhere.
I would join their caravan
But with memories of
Being remembered by
My children and their children
For what I will have left.
31.05.2004
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The day my Mother died I for never forget
The day my mother died I know it broke everyone heart. And nothein will ever be ablr to make it. It's been four years. Please take the time to remember my mother. My mother was a woderful person. Grand mother amd great grand mother. written 5/19/08 Posted 11/30/08
poem by Susie Sunshine
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Male parental hierarchy.
My parents are two, grandparents four
And great grandparents, eight and so on.
I am known by my father, his father,
And his father and so on by male side.
My mother, her mother and father, their
Mother and father and so on are ignored.
My fathers’ mother and grandfather’s
Mother and so on go to oblivion.
I am known by my father, his father
And his father and so on as a family.
All women from whom I have drawn
Their genes have been shut out.
Parental hierarchy is represented
By male, women dislodged at every stage.
25.08.2009
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Robert Frost
Robert Frost,
Your wisdom is great,
And you know all there is to know,
And we appreciate what you teach us.
To me, you are the grandfather I never had,
For you are great,
And you give great advice,
And you are wise,
And you seek the greatness in everyone.
You are a mentor to me and many others,
And your wisdom knows no bounds.
We cannot thank you enough
For the insight you have provided.
Thank you for everything you have done
And all the great poems you have left behind.
poem by James Roberts
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