There’s a place with rows of cypress trees
There’s a place where rows of cypress trees
stand to attention
at the foot of a rocky hillock
and there are graves planted in rows.
As a child could have sworn
that there are ghosts among the graves,
when the wind went through the trees
and shadows move at night
over the graves.
We lived fifty meters away
in a old white house
and it was only
my dad, mom, brother and me.
If I were naughty
or did not want to eat my food
a man with a hat, raincoat and dark glasses
came in through the back door.
In the evenings my dad read poetry
to me and my younger brother
and his voice with the cannibal
and the rider of skimmelperd pan
resounds in me.
Untill a day that cancer
took my dad forever,
fifty meteres further.
[References: Die mensvreter and Die ruiter van skimmelperdpan by A.G. Visser.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Tombstones!
rows and rows of tombstones,
glaring white in the morning sun...
with open graves before them,
and the smell of fresh turned earth.
cars speed by going nowhere;
people walking, as if lost....
the phone rings, no one answers,
the book, unread, stares from the shelf.
trees almost bare softly whisper,
dollar bills blown by the wind...
the old man sits by the station,
counting by number,
and not by name....
rows and rows of tombstones,
waiting for gifts unwrapped
by time!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Poem about Poetry - His Poetry Collection
i found a poetry book on one of the tables in my office
i opened to read it from one poem to another
i discovered that the man never knew poetry
and wondered why he had to publish it
the words did not dance in my mind,
they all stood glued to the page
my heart did not go ga ga and my eyes
did not wish to jump from one line to the other
there were at least 10,000 words which lied
like rows and rows of quiet, never visited graves
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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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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I Stand By The Graves....
i stand by the graves
of those who came before,
those who walked beside me
on this lonesome path....
those i worked with, fought with,
loved with, exchanged poetry
and thoughts with...
sang the songs of freedom with,
prayed prodigal prayers with...
those who burned too bright,
and fell like renegade stars.
who fell by drugs, violence,
hard living, or by suicide...
those who lived too hard too fast!
who took me in when i was a fugitive,
who took me for what i was.
those who dared to bleed
in an angry world....
those who cared without reason!
i stand by the graves silently weeping,
but i am not alone!
for the wind that rustles leaves and grasses,
forever chants their names with hope!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Demise (Untergang)
["Fifth and last version:
To Karl Borromaeas Heinrich"]
Across the snowy pond
the wild birds have moved away.
From our stars blows an icy wind in the evening.
Over our graves
bows the broken forehead of night.
Under oak trees we sway in an argentine pram.
Forever resound the city's niveous walls.
Under thorny bows,
blind pointers we, oh my brother, are climbing to
midnight.
poem by Georg Trakl (1 March 1913), translated by Walter Aue
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At a pan at night
In the dark night I hear horse hoofs
coming on thundering
and there are sparks
bursting from the quartz rocks.
In the sky
there’s a sickle moon
and the hairs
on my arms raise
while blue thunder
fall like shots around me
and I can smell fire and sulphur
on the wind.
For a moment
while a church bell
rings of midnight in the distance,
there’s a horse standing neighing
on its back feet.
Just one look
frightens me past being awake
when another lightning bolt
strikes down next to us
and a horse
with a man without head
passes me at great speed.
In the distance at a ruin
I see an old woman in white
with a shrill voice
cutting through the night.
“Can nothing stop you
Jan van der Meer? ”
[Reference: Die ruiter van skimmelperdpan by A.G. Visser. A legend from the second Anglo-Boer war.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Cathedral Close for Friend Ben Gieske
When night falls on Cathedral Close.
The square is thronged by quiet ghosts
Who line the square on every side
their graves left empty yawning wide.
What is it that they hope to find?
Some salve to give them peace of mind
Why do they stand in silent ranks?
and seek to clear their memory banks.
The sins which will not let them sleep
the guilty secrets which they keep,
weigh on the conscience heavily.
and won’t be rid of easily.
When twilight falls the dead arise.
Each from the grave he occupies
and gather in Cathedral Close.
They seek forgiveness I suppose.
When morning breaks they flee in fright
they fear the coming of the light.
Cathedral close lit by the sun
is quite empty the ghosts have gone.
Back to their graves where they must wait
and in the darkness meditate.
Upon the sins they won’t confess
In agonising sleeplessness.
If only they would realise
within themselves forgiveness lies.
They do not need to stand in rows
When night falls on Cathedral Close.
Triumphantly they could take flight
and wing their way towards the light.
They should have done so long ago
. But guilt refused to let them go.
Why do they stay when they are free
to me it is a mystery
Why do they haunt Cathedral close?
They know no better I suppose.
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Lost Horizons
The last horizons I can see are filled with bars and factories
And in them all we fight to stay awake...
Drink enough of anything to make this world look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves
She had nothing left to say so she said she loved me
I stood there grateful for the lie...
Drink enough of anything to make this girl look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves
Turn summer trees to bones and ice
Turn insect songs against the night
With words we build and words we break
Im drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves...
Drink enough of anything to make myself look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves
song performed by by Gin Blossoms
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To J.W.
Set not thy foot on graves;
Hear what wine and roses say;
The mountain chase, the summer waves,
The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.
Set not thy foot on graves;
Nor seek to unwind the shroud
Which charitable time
And nature have allowed
To wrap the errors of a sage sublime.
Set not thy foot on graves;
Care not to strip the dead
Of his sad ornament;
His myrrh, and wine, and rings,
His sheet of lead,
And trophies buried;
Go get them where he earned them when alive,
As resolutely dig or dive.
Life is too short to waste
The critic bite or cynic bark,
Quarrel, or reprimand;
'Twill soon be dark;
Up! mind thine own aim, and
God speed the mark.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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In Heidelberg
In Heidelberg we stayed in a white house
against the ranges
and there were always
sweet yellow corn that Mom had planted
and nice juicy green beans
that crept up the canes
and I planted rows of onions
and pulled orange carrots
from the ground
and washed them at the tap
and bit pieces from them
and the trees
were heavy with peaches
and we had to
chase the baboons away
that came to strip the them,
but those times
has long passed
and I wonder what is left
of that old white house?
poem by Gert Strydom
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Benghazi Graves -2012
As the light dawns
On knights in graves
Who fought
For cause
Not known
Not known, to them
For whom they fought
And seventy years hence,
On a dark moonless night
Those vivid shadows
Overtook the darkness of moonless night
Razed, ravaged those graves
Whose habitants home had made
Prayed they
Oh Lord!
Direct them
With gumption.
Help them leave their bodies
In environs
Where
Their childhood was not plundered
poem by Sanjay Mehta
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Visit Malaysia Year: Fort A Famosa old graves (State of Malacca)
fort a famosa little jittery
just across the fence
a child's marble grave
the only things that warm
the old, broken graves
sunlight and their love messages
Around the A Famosa are many old graves some several hundred years old. They are of marble and broken in many parts. However, what keep them warm when visiting these graves are the sunlight and the love messages on these graves from love ones.
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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Snow-white of the veldt
(after A.G. Visser)
On a winter afternoon it became icy cold
as Rachel and Hendrik was searching for a calf,
when the snow suddenly started falling around them
everything was white like a huge table-cloth.
Lost and half frozen
they could not find the way home,
with the night falling black
they were blinded by the wet winter wind.
She hollowed out an anthill,
with her naked body she diverted the wind,
with her clothes pressed into the hole to shelter her brother
and so the twelve year old girl Rachel died
was devoured by the icy cold and the winter weather
while she saved the life of her seven year old brother.
[References: "Sneeuwitjie" (Snow-white) by A.G. Visser. In the book "Sketse uit die Lewe van Mens en dier" (Sketches in the lives of humans and animals) by Eugène Marais the incident is noted of the twelve year old girl Rachel de Beer who saved the life of her seven year old brother near to the Drakensberg mountains.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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They say that shadows of deceased ghosts
They say that shadows of deceased ghosts
Do haunt the houses and the graves about,
Of such whose life's lamp went untimely out,
Delighting still in their forsaken hosts:
So, in the place where cruel Love doth shoot
The fatal shaft that slew my love's delight,
I stalk, and walk, and wander day and night,
Even like a ghost with unperceived foot.
But those light ghosts are happier far than I,
For, at their pleasure, they can come and go
Unto the place that hides their treasure so,
And see the name with their fantastic eye:
Where I, alas, dare not approach the cruel
Proud moment that doth enclose my jewel.
poem by Joshua Sylvester
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Little brother dont never wear my hats.....
Little brother don't put on my blue cap that I wear when I stand on the corner
Little brother don't put on my kangol hat the
one I be having on when I be riding in my homeboy
callica
Little brother didn't I tell you don't put
on my feather top hats
As Iwalk in the back door, my little brother was
walking out the front door wearing my red baseball
cap and got shot gap
I told my little brother don't never wear
my red baseball cap
poem by Valentine White
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A Lost Love.
Her brother stopped
you in the high street
and said, Have you heard
about Judith? No, you
replied, thinking maybe
she'd divorced or won
the lottery or had another
child. Her brother hesitated
momentary then said, She
died of cancer. It seemed
as if he'd stabbed a knife
into your gut and twisted
the blade, all the memories
of you and she walking home
from school, arm in arm,
laughing, kissing, the lessons
of school gladly forgotten,
or sitting by the pond in summer,
the birds in the trees overhead,
she and you holding hands,
kissing lips to lips, those alone
moments, those long ago summers,
those dark wintery nights,
she captured in the car headlights,
you wanting her closer and all
those images flashed before your
eyes as her brother's words sunk in,
he standing there, knowing even
after all this time how you and she
had once been lovers, childhood
days like shadows on a far away wall,
the trees swaying and her saying
back in that moonlit lane, I'm engaged
to another, after you had proposed
innocently some years later, once
school had done its worse. Now her
brother's words had pushed their
way into your mind, her smile, those
eyes peering into yours, that I love
you gaze, long ago, in happier days.
poem by Terry Collett
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Descent and Defeat
To Karl Borromaus Heinrich
Over the white fishpond
The wild birds have blown away.
An icy wind drifts from our stars at evening.
Over our graves
The broken forehead of the night is bending.
Under the oaks we veer in a silver skiff.
The white walls of the city are always giving off
sound.
Under arching thorns
O my brother blind minute-hands we are climbing
toward midnight
poem by Georg Trakl
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Sequestered Writing
Horses were turned loose in the child's sorrow. Black and roan, cantering through snow.
The way light fills the hand with light, November with graves, infancy with white.
White. Given lilacs, lilacs disappear. Then low voices rising in walls.
The way they withdrew from the child's body and spoke as if it were not there.
What ghost comes to the bedside whispering You?
-- With its no one without its I --
A dwarf ghost? A closet of empty clothes?
Ours was a ghost who stole household goods. Nothing anyone would miss.
Supper plates. Apples. Barbed wire behind the house.
At the end of the hall, it sleepwalks into a mirror wearing mother's robe.
A bedsheet lifts from the bed and hovers. Face with no face. Come here.
The bookcase knows, and also the darkness of books. Long passages into,
Endless histories toward, sleeping pages about. Why else toss gloves into a grave?
A language that once sent ravens through firs. The open world from which it came.
Words holding the scent of an asylum fifty years. It is fifty years, then.
The child hears from within: Come here and know, below
And unbeknownst to us, what these fields had been.
poem by Carolyn Forché
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Memories And Heroes
We had the chance
But it never happened
And now im left with the ghosts of memories
Saying whisper something nice and ill make you scream twice.
Thinking of all the good times we shared
Even though, the good times were never really there
Because we are walking on the graves of heroes
You left me broken searching for a hero
Until i learnt that everyone is a hero
We are walking on the graves of our heroes
The graves have our names chiseled into them
Everyone is a hero
Everyone is a God
Everyone is evil
Question.
Have i become my inner hero, God
Or have i become my inner evil?
poem by Laura Cummings
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From The Tuscan
WHEN in the west the red sun sank in glory,
The cypress trees stood up like gold, fine gold;
The mother told her little child the story
Of the gold trees the heavenly gardens hold.
In golden dreams the child sees golden rivers,
Gold trees, gold blossoms, golden boughs and leaves,
Without, the cypress in the night wind shivers,
Weeps with the rain and with the darkness grieves.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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