Harare
The midsummer sun hangs flaming
over the capitol city
which is painted white,
(the same colour as the graves)
in a country
stripped from the white man’s might,
stripped from providing
and exporting food, minerals
and products
where the value of the currency
changes faster than the billion dollar number
printed on the worthless bills.
Just here and there a car moves
as the country is without fuel
and even the traffic lights
are not working
(and neither are most people)
as the electricity is down.
.
The rural farms stand stripped bare
with primitive peasants
living there in utter poverty
and the fertile soil is vacant
as everything has being taken
by the people
(by force from farmers)
and now nobody has anything
and nothing has being planted
on a commercial scale
and famine is getting
to chaotic lengths
and the people
have returned to the land
to find a resting place there.
Children play under flowering jacaranda trees
in a light hot breeze
with stomachs swollen from hunger
and slime running from noses
and flies wandering over their faces
and some men urinate
against the nearest tree.
The street is filled with fear,
poverty, hunger, pestilence and death
and soldiers stand around idle
smoking cigarettes
longing back to the days
when they went as the fifth brigade
to the south west regions
and killed Ndebele people
plundering their villages,
raping their woman
and slaughtering the children.
Still there’s no sound
of real opposition, as apposing politicians
are arrested and beaten
time after time
by the police
and an out voted president,
a man proclaiming to be a Jesuit,
remains in the ruling chair
and the secret police is everywhere
and he holds out a begging hand
to neighbouring countries
for fuel, electricity, food and medicine
and whatever he wants
and it’s quite easy to head south
even if you have to crawl,
walk, take a bicycle,
a car, a bus or a train
to a neighbouring country
where the colour of your skin
counts much more
than a place of birth.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
South Africa Is Also My Country
From my birth South Africa is my own country
and my people can flee to an island
but my own culture and language stays holy
although this place is not safe,
I still trust on a much higher hand,
from my birth South Africa is my own country.
From my birth South Africa is my own country
even if the struggling government gives me resistance,
do oppress me with unfair laws,
even if nothing can stop the disintegration,
even if I am not safe against the onslaught,
from my birth South Africa is my own country.
From my birth South Africa is my own country,
even if some act with effrontery against my people
I come from a noble heritage,
I am proud on my Afrikaner lineage,
even if people and buildings are set alight,
from my birth South Africa is my own country.
From my birth South Africa is my own country
with no other place I have such a deep bond
and even if here I will never have any job,
I believe in God and a Christian church,
God himself still keeps my ways intact,
from my birth South Africa is my own country.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Pretoria
I look at a city,
a city once modern, new
and progressive, the cultural centre
of a nation
but now poverty
and mismanagement
is taking its toll.
Where ten years back
people could live in its apartments
now is a ghetto,
with prostitutes on the street,
primitive men urinating against buildings
and teenagers walking with ghetto-blasters
playing music at full volume.
Where at traffic lights
windows are smashed with bricks
and valuables are stolen,
parked cars are taken,
where cars are hijacked
with the barrel of a gun
and cars are even stripped
at the police grounds.
A capital city in a country
that has thrown its borders
wide open to the rest of Africa
and every criminal
has headed there
and gangsters live in paradise
but in the suburbs
people still are making a living
in fortresses guarded by dogs
and security devices,
with panic buttons
for the nearest rent a cop
and people still pray
and go to work and play
as if crime is the norm
and the inadequacy
of the new government
doesn’t really matter.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Injustice Here
Some place far from here
A baby is crying
A child is hungry
A mother is dying
Some place far from here
A family is in need
Adults cannot read
Children capture
Never again to be seen
Some place far from here
There’s no drinking water
Someone’s lost their daughter
Some place from here
People are homeless and alone
Without light and are cold
They sleep on dirt roads
With only their skin and their bones
Some place from here
There are so many things
So much injustice happening
Lots of poverty
Lots of death
But we forget
That right in our country
We have all these things too
We worry about a place far, far from here
And don’t take care of our priorities here
What about the poverty that covers our streets
Or children that are dying with no food to eat
The people in our country are suffering too
So although helping somewhere else
Is what we should do
There are obligations here first to pursue
We’re a great country
We have always been
But to continue this legacy
This is where we begin
poem by Jessica Collazo
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The Second Coming (Cavatina Sequence)
(after William Butler Yeats)
Anarchy, mere madness is loose,
a president
for life is enthroned (while voted out) ,
an incident
of total corruption occurs daily,
not diffident
a country is laid waist, in merriment
brought to an utter impoverishment.
His fifth brigade cleans Matabeleland;
killing, raping;
farmers are driven from their property
just escaping
with their bare lives from some murderous crowds,
with mouth gaping
he smiles on the conquest of fertile farmland,
causing famine, in victory holds up a hand.
While havoc reigns some blood flows everywhere,
chaos is spreading,
the opposition is sent to prison,
he is leading
the country to ruin, its falling apart,
its degrading,
it looses all kinds of decent order,
some millions flee south and cross the border.
Without any conviction destruction
is on the earth,
while people want to rob, rape, pillage and kill;
are told from birth
that they have been robbed from a future,
anger they girth;
pray to their ancestor spirits for war,
surely God will now be coming once more!
[Reference: 'The Second Coming' by William Butler Yeats.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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War Vets Dream
When he came from Nam he had a plan
That not many people would understand.
To help children see that not all in life
Was destruction and poverty.
With death and bombings all around
All he could hear was the children s sounds.
With tears in their eyes and not understanding why
Why so many bodies on the ground
And not a one making a sound.
All he could see was these faces of despair
Children did not understand and could not care.
These visions of the war would
always stay in his mind
From that day forward till the end of time.
He vowed that he would do all that he can
To help all children and his fellow man.
When you see the ravages of war
And a country torn apart
And its people scattered
Then staying alive is all that matters.
He knew that he could not stop this genocide
But he knew for the future children he had to try.
He wanted to create a place called “children s world”
A safe haven for every boy and girl.
A place where children could be children
And war they would not see.
Where they could be with friends and their families.
A place with a roof over their heads
Hot food and a bed.
He knows with time this dream will come true
“It just depends on people like you.”
poem by Louis Rams
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The exiles
As an exile I live
in a country that despises me,
despises my whole nation, our language,
the colour of our skin
where the president
has opened the doors wide
to all of Africa,
and citizens from other countries
are more welcome here than us
but even if he tries
to drive me and my people
into the sea, as immigrants
right into the wide world,
like my ancestors
I have sprouted from this very earth
and there’s no other place
where I can make a living,
no other place that calls me
with the same intensity
and although work is being reserved
by the colour of skin
and my patience is running very thin
and I struggle to survive
in the situation that I am in
no highfalutin balderdash
of this country only belonging
to those who are black
is going to break my people or me
and still we trust God,
to change circumstances,
to change the mindset op people,
and if not to conquer and destroy
to make this country a place
in which all its citizens
have the opportunity
to make a living
and to be free in speech,
in dignity, in association,
in religious beliefs,
to live a life
according to your own culture and values.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Submission (in answer to Don Mattera)
I have seen a white old man and woman
turned onto the street,
living in cardboard boxes
with their small white dog
in the new disastrous improved South Africa,
I have seen white people taking their own lives
when black mine owners robbed them of salaries
and there was no job to get,
no living to be made
and they did this
instead of starting to beg.
I have seen white men and women
with university degrees
leaving the country
in numbers that are more than a million
to find a place to have a life
somewhere else in a foreign country,
I have waited for more than a hour queuing
at a local bank to make a cash deposit,
as a payment to someone
and the way that things are going,
with the black economic empowerment
and people not up to doing a simple job,
soon all of private industry
will be falling apart
as the government departments are doing.
I have noticed friends and family members
who were robbed, hijacked in their vehicles,
raped, tortured and killed
while the South African Police
did their very best to make a arrest
and like in all other things
are not up to it.
I know people who live in despair,
who are totally without hope
while the country’s borders
are flung wide open
to the rest of Africa
to first have a chance at a job
and their degrees and experience
in the face of this means nothing
but not one does bend
under the black heel to submission,
at the mercy of God
their lives go on…
[Reference: “Submission” by Don Mattera.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Still collective man feels compelled
Have you killed a white today
is still being proclaimed
and old people are killed,
white farmers pay a price
and robberies and killings
in suburban arias
never stop
as if every criminal
in Africa
have being heading south
and some are taught
to take from others
as if the possessions
are their own
and in the doing of it
to maim, rape, kill
and slaughter
without conscience
and the killings
are still being done
by psychopathic people
who like animals in a pack
follow a new psychopathic god
proclaiming an insane culture.
Still collective man
feels compelled
to claim love
only for the self
and not to care
about love for another
while the affirmative flame
burns bright
in a beleaguered night
and guns and knives flash
on the defenceless
and the state, police
and maddened population
do not comprehend
that no one lives alone
and everyone eventually
pays the price
when hunger, poverty
and destruction
takes its course.
[Reference: September 1,1939 by W.H. Auden.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Johannesburg
There are mini-bus taxis everywhere
hooting, swerving, stopping anywhere
and people on the street
shouting to each other
as if they are not
in talking distance,
but as if everybody is deaf.
Some hawkers are selling
sweets, cigarettes and newspapers
while others are cooking maize,
porridge and eggs.
Youngsters stand next to
parking meters showing
open parking spaces
and demanding money
to watch vehicles parked there.
Some hobos sleep
in tattered blankets
and smell of wine
and liquor and the sick
sweet odour or retching.
Prostitutes walk up and down
street corners in mini skirts
and t-shirts
with nipples showing through
and have hello smiles
plastered across their faces.
Some gum sniffing children
beg at traffic lights
with twisted arms and legs
and other beggars
have posters wishing you well
or telling you to go to hell.
People queue in lines
waiting for busses
and some stand smoking
while they talk
and businessmen, lawyers,
soldiers, secretaries
are walking quickly past
with briefcases, satchels,
and handbags
and on the sidewalk
there is urine,
blood, vomit, some rotting food
and smoked cigarettes
and everywhere signs
of a city in a country
that is falling apart.
poem by Gert Strydom
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So Loftily Silent
Why buy newspapers when you refuse to discuss
anything appearing in it, totally unconcerned that
the farmers are tortured on their farms, killed for
their money and livestock - as long as YOU are
safe in a cushy job while the rest of the country
burns and dies and goes down the drain, you
simply will not say anything
FINE, swallow your bloomin' newspapers, delight
in your existence without sympathy wasted on farmer
martyrs - their function of food provision does not
concern anybody, especially the government, who
cares what happens to anybody as long as they
are safe far away from children suffocated in
boiling water, people burned with hot irons
Why should you care, you can import food from
overseas or anywhere, who needs farmers here
in South Africa, you cannot be bothered even to
express sympathy with their fate, may you wash
your hands in innocence while the country burns,
following your political masters who see the land
as just another Tunisia to be sucked dry
By government and all their acolytes; destroy all
private business until the state is bankrupt and
international groups must administrate the remains
of their destruction - oh well, I am glad you are all
so happy while these people cry unto heaven -
retribution follows when people are exploited,
hope you will be so loftily silent then…
poem by Margaret Alice Second
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Your name will not carry another meaning for me
Your name will not carry another meaning for me
like people see you in foreign countries,
as a place where people serve criminal kings
and even if they throw the South away and it becomes just Africa
with foreigners streaming in, I do not go out to hurt you,
even if we feel that we deserve a better country.
Your name will not carry another meaning for me
like people see you in foreign countries,
as a place where we have to ask God for help
in injustice, revolt and a loss of national dignity
where white people by force loose their own possessions
because I am born to you like my ancestors, my South Africa.
Your name will not carry another meaning for me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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America In Turmoil
this country has gotten out of hand-its time for americans to take
a stand.-we let petroleum prices rule our lives.
and change the way we live.-now its time for the politicians to give.
the same way that the north and south joined forces
to become a nation.
it is time for democrats and republicans to become one.
and help the people get out from under the gun.
unity is what we need right now-but its nowheres to be found.
president bush took the oath-and made this country
his escape goat.
he took ameica to a war that was in civil strife
and had americans lose their lives.
now! he is pulling out the large profitering companies
from a hole that they created.
and used the publics money for their own personal greed.
and then says they're in need.
get rid of the ones who created this mess-let obama take the test.
if this country is in poverty-it is time to be set free.
poem by Louis Rams
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April, March! Soldiers Search for HUNGER MARCH - A1 Story
World has advanced in many days...
Yet in 21st Century poverty retains in umpteen ways;
Hunger glinted in his eyes...
He does begging and petty thievery, at the same time!
Cheeks were sunken and clothes were in rags but still, a crime!
Believe I swear in the name of god, my words are not lies.
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
I saw a rag picker scrounging for a coin in the garbage,
Though he is with bare foot who knows as bub, he is cute!
Owing to the troubles he met, made him mute.
He can fill the rivers with poverty's tears...
His eyes were pale and mouth opened for food cabbage!
One among is he, pleading and begging the passersby yet nobody hears.
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
The street is lighted with half naked
Bodies go begging down, the street and half fed,
From head to toe they're covered with poverty, yet
With pain and misery as their make-up set;
Hunger is present in their stomach and a rat's race!
And it is vaguely seen on their face and a food race.
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
Labourers in construction breaking the stones...
And lifting the bricks while scorching sun is the witness!
They work bodily, resembles awkward dance of a heap of bones,
The skin saturates and swallows the heat, I bet!
Leaving it dark as the midnight sky, oh! What a mess!
Their hopes are dashed; life is smashed of body’s sweat!
The Mother weeps and father yells!
Sitting in the house of poverty and what-else!
Small sister sleeps and her little brother dies and I linger;
His father only stares as he is killed by hunger...
Why doctors only cure diseases and why not
Poverty - the biggest disease of all. Is it not?
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
Every now and then in newspapers, I hear
The death of a peasant or two, oh my dear!
Unable to feed family, life has become Herculean task,
Drowned himself in melancholy, under hunger mask!
Bogged down under wheels of Pressure, not to hide...
Due to debts of treasure, he committed suicide!
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
Lot of hunger and empty bowl without food is poverty,
Not having one more dress to take bath is poverty,
............................................. ..............................................
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>READ PART 2>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
*A big NOTICE BOARD: Oops! Sorry the poem is NOT completed. This is just break time! Now read to make your reading wholesome read PART - 2
April, March! Soldiers Search for HUNGER MARCH - A2 Story
poem by Harindhar Reddy
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Let South Africa be our country again
Let South Africa be our country again
and South Africans from all over the world
stream back,
to dream here like before,
to hope, to wish
of a place
not bordered of by burglar bars
where people can stay free
before God and man.
Let merit and respect be present
and people receive what they deserve
rather than expecting affirmative-action
and mercy from others
and the whole world
and like in the past
let us successfully do our own thing.
Let opportunities really exist
to be free in work,
living and association,
to study in your own language,
let us pull the teeth of the dogs
that rips others apart to rule,
of might that shatters the weak.
Let the animal inside us die
and we really become people
that does not burn each other,
crush and vituperate
and in groups jeering urge the killing on
and do not rob, but work
for the life that we have got.
Let we break the chains
of people ruling
with profit, might
and work people into the ground
and misuse others to gain prosperity.
I am the white Afrikaner that had to fight in war
and now are unemployed and hungry,
while I have a university degree.
I am the black man that without education
have to dig holes and man garbage trucks
and conclude my life in a shack.
I am the coloured that always stand between all groups
and do not know where I belong
and rather gather in gangs.
I am the South African that life
drives down the whole time
and have to pray all the time,
to know how to carry on.
l’Envoi
Still, I am the one that dream
of a country free from crime,
where everybody have equal opportunity,
where rape, corruption
and lawlessness ends
and where South Africa is our country again.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Stripped Away
Fuel - Stripped Away
I must have left my soul cracked open
like a door. . .
in the night. . .
Seizing the opportunity
while i lay there sleeping
all the beggars and thieves walked in
and they stole
all i stored inside
I woke to find
a shell of a man
and all i had once believed . . .
Stripped away . . .
Stripped away
Well i sat at Satan's table
and I drank the wine
in a feast of revelry
Till my eyes were red and swollen
and my soul was so held with stains
that just won't come clean
and i tell myself
that i am in youth
What all i could achieve
Stripped away . . .
Stripped away
Well i stared at my own reflection
But i know that those eyes can't be me
My sprit floats in desperation
on dreams like I've never seen
So i reach for you
and draw you near
and pray that you won't be. . .
Stripped away
Stripped away
song performed by by Fuel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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April, March! Soldiers Search for HUNGER MARCH - A2 Story
Lot of hunger and empty bowl without food is poverty,
Not having one more dress to take bath is poverty,
Sheltered, willing but failing to accommodate a guest is also poverty,
Mother's sick but cannot afford treatment is also poverty,
If treated, prescribed but cannot buy medicine is poverty;
A mother's thought,2 mouthful of rice with 3 children is poverty.
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
The fort of confidence is dismantled by poverty and frustration;
They can build castles in air though lack inspiration,
They simply look for food threw in dustbin in month of May!
They die while living, live in dying daily with their life of dismay;
Poverty is not crime but it is a curse and worse...
I'm brand ambassador of poverty and I endorse!
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
Don't show poverty as excuse...
God gave you brain and make use and bemuse,
No matter if you are born in poverty's slum-dom
While some are handicap blind, dumb, deaf and a cough;
You work and Strive dawn to dusk with inspiration, if
You make education oxygen of your life and your kingdom.
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
Hence, don't look up to someone or don't cry and cry;
Go far, father and farthest, Age is no bar so try and try!
Take all ladders, Surpass Eiffel Tower and reach the sky!
Remember one Booker T Washington and Abraham Lincoln
Became presidents of America, and poverty is won!
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
From in India to Cambodia and Georgia to Indonesia,
From Kazakhstan to Afghanistan, China and all Asia;
From Namibia to Zambia and Algeria to Nigeria,
From Uganda to Rwanda, Morocco and all South Africa;
Bolivia to Columbia, Guyana to Argentina and all South America;
Third world is resounding with Mania! Mania! Food Mania!
April, March! Soldiers search for Hunger march at poverty's home.
........................................ ................................................. ........................
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>READ PART ONE >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
BIG NOTICE BOARD: Sorry, if you LIKE to grasp central theme of poem Just take a break! Now READ PART1 to make your reading wholesome.
April, March! Soldiers Search for HUNGER MARCH - A1 Story
poem by Harindhar Reddy
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Poverty Doesn’t Laugh
Fill the rivers,
With poverty’s tears,
Only then will they be filled with innocent water.
The brick that fills poverty’s throat
Should be filled with heaven’s food
Not hell’s slaughter.
Poverty’s hands should not be,
As empty as our hearts.
Their feet should not feel the piercing sand
While we rot in cars.
Poverty’s teeth are famished
Because they bite empty air,
Our teeth are stuffed with arrogance
Until our blessings with be stripped bare
In the night of hell
When guilt will crawl upon us
The worms and snakes of our sins
Will pierce venom through our selfishness
And there we will stand
Bare of all our blessings
The naked truth for the world to see
Will be paraded across poverty’s eyes
But they will not laugh.
poem by Mehreen Mujeeb
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To me you are
To me you are the woman
that walks up and down
at the traffic light
and smiles almost shy,
when I look up
and still give a view
of her breasts
To me you are
the hunger and pain,
that I hear in the voices
of children in back streets
where they loose all courage.
To me you are
the crippled gum sniffing children,
that swing walk
with eyes without hope.
To me you are the vagrant,
that struggles along shuffling
and worries about the next
sleeping place and food
and smile without teeth
when he gets a few coins.
To me you are the beggar
who stands unobserved
at a busy traffic light,
while cars are streaming past
where nobody knows or comprehends
his despair.
To me you are the drug dealers
who hangs out in clubs
and look whom they can still catch,
with their contaminating
deadly poison.
To me you are the street thug,
that brakes car windows with bricks
and steal the valuables of people
and sell it at only a Rand or two.
To me you are the criminal
that steals cars in the streets
and are happy
with the despair,
that he is dealing out unscrupulous.
In reality you are the big city
that gives and takes,
where people live like termites
past each other
and rowed in,
as if others do not exist
To rather stay far away from it all
and to get rest and peace there
at times wants to take predominance,
but I love you
like a husband does his wife.
In you is where
some people still build dreams
and wish and live
and have an own place.
In you I see children
giving bread to birds
and people,
giving money to car guards.
In you are places
where people are making a living
and really help each other
and still I believe,
that in places in you
there are more good than evil.
poem by Gert Strydom
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I've Heard Much Talk Of Darfur
I've heard much talk of Darfur though I've never been to there
Where people only live in hope and die slowly in despair
The tragic footage of there on the t v news brings it all home to me
Of what it must be like for those who live in abject poverty.
In a Land of war and droughts and famines where war lords rule by fear
Of any feel good and happy stories we never seem to hear
Where people die of hunger in their thousands every day
Man's inhumanity to man is alive and well today.
Where men and women look old before they reach their prime
To be born in the wrong place ought not to be a crime
The seeds they've planted for food have died and the parched ground is cracked and dry
And the warlords steal their food aid and the people starve and die.
A million people hungry for every billionaire
And the super wealthy getting wealthier doesn't life seem so
unfair
And poverty has it's root cause in man's inhumanity to man
And I feel sure that wealthy people also live in Darfur in Sudan.
Of late I have heard much news of Darfur and I've seen sad footage on t v
Of people due to no fault of their own in the worst of poverty
In a drought stricken Land ruled by Warlords the innocent die young
And are buried in mass graves and their praises remain unsung.
poem by Francis Duggan
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In Far Too Many Numbers They Rise (In Answer To Maya Angelou)
There are many facts in history
of people both ignorant and wise;
at times I look with incredulity
at how people multiply to rise
having as many children as they can do,
with diarrhoea, living in gloom,
with blown up bellies where food run through,
living in the very red-brown dirt in doom
without a look of hope in their eyes
where president-for-life dictators govern
with an iron rod, not hearing weakened cries,
while for civilization, for food they yearn;
where platinum, gold and copper mines
are sold to the Chinese, are from the country apart,
while parts of Africa goes into total decline
and to make a living is extremely hard.
Does this poem of mine offend you?
Unfortunately I do not deal in lies,
unfortunately these facts are very true
and to some people it’s no surprise
as AIDS, poverty, pestilence runs as a black tide
that comes in unstoppable waves of pain
from which very few of the poorest people can hide,
as far too many deaths happen again and again
and from this destruction very few get clear
while for something better they constantly crave
as their daily lives are always lived in fear,
as far too many go to a very early grave.
Still people multiply to rise under blue harsh skies
in far too many numbers, to never be free,
from lives that many of them do despise,
from lives lived in constant poverty.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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