They came in the middle of the night (in reply to Daniel P. Kunene)
They came in the middle of the night
in a huge crowd, almost like a lynching gang
the type who previously had torched,
burned their own alive
and in their hands were panga-blades,
spades, crowbars, pistols
and AK-47 sub-machineguns
and then there were the younger ones
who carried assegai spears and knives
and they were there to destroy home and hearth
to wipe the white farmer from the earth
singing: “a bullet for a white”
and had formed up like a ancient impi
in full might
and they assaulting the farmer, his children and wife
while shouting:
“Amandla! Amandla! Ngawethu! ”
and took law into their own hands,
robbed, tried to rape, to kill
while receiving an inhuman thrill from it.
[Reference: Do Not Ask Me by Daniel P. Kunene.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
Home invasion
A bullet for a Boer
and kill farmer,
kill a white
still rages on from
the ruling party
where members are singing it
from the age of eight
and in a rural district
a home invasion takes place
in the middle of the night
a male family member
is shot through the shoulder
tied up with wire
bashed with a baseball bat,
chopped with a panga-blade
and before getting to hospital
he is dead.
The woman in the house
is led to a room
where they are tied up
and are raped
and everything valuable
is carried away
And the incapable police
can find nobody
and the killers go free
and are still missing
like my two stolen cars.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Sonnets of the boy who drew cats
I
A long time ago
when soldiers still carried spears and swords
a Japanese farmer and his wife,
had a string of children
and everyone got a task.
They milked cows, cared after pigs,
gathered chicken eggs
and ploughed the soil,
planted rice, wheat and oats,
but the youngest was too weak and small
to do any work
and time and again he neglected his duties
and disappeared
and drew cats.
II
The farmer scratched his head
and did not know what to do
with a child that disappears
and couldn’t complete a task and drew
big and small, white, black, ginger and pied cats
of each size and type.
So the farmer and his wife reckoned
to take the child to the nearest temple
to become a priest
and the farmer tied his sword around his side,
loaded the child on a horse
saddled his own horse
and maybe the men of God
would learn the child about duties.
III
The child studied well
but nobody could stop him
from drawing cats everywhere
and it happened
that the priest thought
that he couldn’t
become a priest and rather
be an artist.
The child was sent
to a temple farther away
and the priest instructed him
to avoid big places at night
and to find a sleeping place
in a small place.
IV
The temple was abandoned
because a evil goblin
coming from the dark earth,
expelled the priests
and the soldiers
that went to face him
had all disappeared.
At night a light burned
in the temple
and when the boy arrived
he went in and everywhere
that he found a white screen he painted a cat
and he remembered the words of the old priest
and went to sleep in a small cabinet.
V
That night he heard a big noise
of a great fight
and cats roaring like lions
growling angrily
while something tried to
smash and pierce them
and he heard them
ripping something to pieces.
The next morning
a goblin
with the head of a rat,
with a pronged whip and sword in his hands
was dead in the middle of the temple
where he lost the fight.
VI
l’Envoi
There was still wet blood
on the mouths of the cats
painted
on the screens
and they looked innocent
and vulnerable.
When the priests returned
they immediately saw
what happened
and they declared
boy a hero
and later he was renown
as a painter
that only paints cats.
[Reference: With thanks to “Japanese Fairy Tales, The boy who drew cats” by Lafcadio Hearn that gave me the idea of this poem.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Not with a machinegun, but with a pen (in answer to Breyten Breytenbach)
Not with a machinegun, but with a pen
I write this prayer
since Your might is greater than any weapon:
What am I able to tell You, Jesus Christ,
almighty Creator, God and upper Lord,
I who are only an Afrikaner in my forties,
since You know every thing, even before it happens
and there’s nothing that I can teach You.
How my country was taken away
by people who pray to ancestral spirits
(who probably are demons) ,
that a man with more than one wife
sit in the highest chair,
that I still pay taxes
when and where I have a job
and that it is difficult times
and work is very scarce
for a white man.
Would I have to tell about a government
that sings give me my machinegun
and a bullet for a Boer
and kill the farmer,
kill the white
as You know every thing.
That my people were disarmed
by the government
and by barbarians
are hacked into pieces
with panga-blades and axes
like you were sacrificed
and even in death
they are humiliated
by pulling their pants down
like You had to hang naked on the cross,
that women are raped
as if every white woman
is a sex slave
belonging to the hordes
that they still throw knucklebones
and think that it brings them invincibility
and freedom from blame.
l’Envoi
All that I am really asking
is that all of these deeds
and the things that they do, say and sing
go into the cup of Your wrath
and please help
my people and me
to serve You better
that the wide world
(like with our ancestors)
can see Your might and salvation.
[References: nie met die pen nie maar met die masjiengeweer by Breyten Breytenbach. Murder on Eugene Terreblance. Murder and violence on white people.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Home invasion in Springs
Masked like the black criminals
that robs you of your car
and just there and there promises you death,
they arrived
with a mini bus taxi on the farm,
drove right through the farm gate
and at the front door
jumped out of the kombi
with five steps intruded into the house
to bring death to the farmer,
to rape the wife
and daughter.
The farmer heard the crash
at the gate,
he realized that it was big trouble
heard them in their own language command
to kill, while shot upon shot
was ringing from the front porch
and he though about the obliteration
of his whole family.
His wife was too far away
in the lounge busy with sewing
and he heard his daughter rushing screaming
to her mother
turned about hurried to the gun safe
and got hold of a pump action shotgun
with LG cartridges
and rushed down the hallway.
In the lounge four black criminals
aimed pistols at his daughter and wife
told them to strip themselves bare
and when they did not want to
one said to the others in his language
to kill them
while the farmer was sneaking
closer at the back of the lounge suite.
Just one glance from the farmer
made his wife and daughter fall to the ground
two shots came from the shotgun
lifting two of the gangsters right from their feet
and the other two started shooting
into the ceiling
and the wall of the lounge
and when the farmer fired again
they fled in fear to the outside
turning around to fire at the farmer
and another one dropped in his tracks,
the other ran wounded into the cornfield.
At the start the police, wanted to arrest
the farmer for the murder of the robbers,
but there was more than enough evidence
that it was self-defence,
even the farm workers
were witnesses
about the shooting, threat
of the robbers
and by his actions
the farmer saved himself, his wife and daughter
and the labourers praised him
as a kind and a just man
but at the church
some members regarded the farmer
as a mass killer
who had determined the fate of others with a shotgun.
poem by Gert Strydom
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My God witnesses every thing
My God witnesses every thing,
the woman crying at night
about the child that she doesn’t get,
the robbers sneaking around in the day
driving away with stolen cars,
the poor living in shacks
who have to live on a paupers wage,
the farmer working in his fields
who goes home at dusk,
the barbarians that assault him later
and kill him with panga blades
and there’s nothing that passes by my Lord
and on His time His justice follows,
His salvation and wondrous deeds unfold
and every day He sets the way
that every one of us go on.
poem by Gert Strydom
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After Ventersdorp,4 April 2010
In storm language the wind talks
blind full of thunder
that draws blue lines
over the tar road
and the Jacarandas wriggle,
washing on balconies are jerked
and now angry
the wind howls and cries
and I see lightning bolts
slamming down near the Union Buildings.
Rows of maize fields greet me
where the knobs stand green
and there’s no peace
coming from the greeting
and in vain is waited on the murdered farmer
and somewhere there are cattle bellowing
but not for long anymore
as the slaughterers
are sharpening their Panga-blades
and have already violated the farmer
his wife and daughter,
have stolen what they can
and nobody can stop the plunder and pillage
of the country
as a swarm of locust are descending.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Baptism of fire (in answer to Dikobe wa Mogale)
Even when you cast glowing iron
into spears and sharpen them,
draw the blades
of your panga-swords,
ram magazines into your pistols,
into AK-47 assault rifles,
dance around fires
trying to ensnare ancestral spirits
chant the songs of killing
and begin to hate,
curse the anvil of unity
and decide to be free
from every living white human
and bring death and anarchy
as a harvest of the fire
and continue the endless killings
I will still bow down
on my knees
and pray to the almighty God
even if in the presence
of my enemies,
even if thousands gather as foes
and trust that He will deliver me
and every single person
of my nation.
[Reference: baptism of fire by by Dikobe wa Mogale.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Working And Committed (Response)
it is not the plow,
but the farmer's back,
and the farmer's legs.
it is not the hoe,
but the farmer's hands,
and the farmer's heart,
working and committed!
it is not the political system,
but the moral fiber beneath.
not the moral fiber of judgement,
but that guided by human compassion.
for the back and the legs,
and the hands and the heart,
are the working cogs of freedom.
anything done without love will fail!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Kill All The White Man
The white man call himself civilized
Cause he know how to take over
The white man come to pillage my village
Now he tell me I have to bend over
Oh yeah, kill all the white man
No I dont like the white man up in me
He rape my people as he rape my country
Everything I love and cherish, he try to take away
We will be rid of him, soon come the day
Oh yeah, kill all the white man
Oh yeah, kill all the white man
Oh yeah, kill all the white man
Oh yeah, kill all the white man
song performed by by NOFX
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Farmer's Bride (Cavatina Sequence) (In Answer To Charlotte Mew)
There was a farmer's wife, who was afraid
every day,
was driven wild with unmentioned fear;
always away
she was hidden beyond some lock and key,
never was gay
but doves gathered at her window sill,
many birds fluttered near at her will.
Without much love she was driven to work,
once she did flee
with the farmer and his labourers searching;
she was happy
while she was hiding in the large cornfield,
was from fear free,
later sneaked into the nearest church,
while drunk from the bar her husband did lurch.
Like a small animal she was hiding,
the minister
prayed for her but then took her back home,
quite sinister
acted the farmer as he whipped her,
did register
her into a lunatic asylum
and of his actions that was the sum.
The magpie's feathers did lie in her room
and she was gone
as if she had suddenly taken flight,
had moved on,
one day to a much better loving world,
but all alone
until his sudden death the farmer was,
they found him deep in a field of green grass.
[Reference: 'The Farmer's Bride' by Charlotte Mew.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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The writing is on the wall
Now the writing is on the wall
and with the umpteenth killing
a know leader is dead
and dishonoured in hatred
and now the king ask for tranquillity
as if “give me my machinegun
and a bullet for a Boer
and kill a farmer, kill a white”
has no consequence
and I wonder what he wants to do
with his machinegun
(and at the court
blacks cheer killers as heroes)
or is the plan
to kill us one by one quietly?
Or is he begging for a chance
to let the army loose
on white people?
Is he still too stupid
to read the writing
of another blood river
coming almost unstoppable?
poem by Gert Strydom
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Christmas (Tuckerman sonnet)
(after A. E. Housman)
Home are the soldiers, they are home and free,
they are home from the far off battlefield
never to a man’s will again to yield
home with loved ones, some friends to see.
Home is the farmer from the working field
where many acres of land lies prepared,
he is at the place where he wants to be
safe under God’s almighty constant shield
free from all kinds of dark iniquity
tranquillity is in the open veldt,
the evening falls, twilight is at hand,
with his cattle all having being cared
and soldier’s dance with a happy band,
close the farmer’s wife is being held
[Reference: XXII “Home is the sailor, home from sea” by A. E. Housman.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Taxes On The Farmer Feeds Us All
(traditional, adapted by ry cooder)
(d) - (a) - (e)
(a) we worked through spring and winter, through (d) summer and through (a) fall
But the mortgage worked the hardest and the (e) steadiest of us all
It (a) worked on nights and sundays, it (d) worked each holiday
(e) settled down among us and it never went (a) away
The farmer comes to town with his wagon broken down
The farmer is the man who feeds us all
If you only look and see I know you will agree
That the farmer is the man who feeds us all
(a) the farmer is the man, the farmer is the man
He buys on his credit until (e) fall
Then they (a) take him by the hand
And they (d) lead him from his land
And the (e) merchant is the man who gets it (a) all
The farmer is the man, the farmer is the man
He lives on his credit until fall
With the interest rates so high
Its a wonder he dont die
But the taxes on the farmer feeds us all
Well, the banker says hes broke and the merchant stops and smoke
But they forget that its the farmer that feeds them all
It would put them to the test if the farmer took a rest
And theyd know that its the farmer that feeds them all
The farmer is the man, the farmer is the man
Lives on his credit until fall
Well, his pants are wearing thin
His condition, its a sin
cause the taxes on the farmer feeds us all
song performed by by Ry Cooder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Day They Robbed Me Of My Life (In Answer To Don Mattera)
Black people have got power
in this government that rules,
to sing songs of hatred
like kill the Boer, kill the farmer,
kill the white man
and to sit back in comfortable chairs,
while pillage, rape, torture
and robberies takes place
and then when crime is out of control
to be about it totally amazed
Black people have got power
in this government that rules,
to destroy a lifetime’s career,
years of study at university,
years of experience
of doing a person’s utter best
in moments with affirmative action
and turning lives into nothing but dust.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Bo Weevil
You may talk about the ladies
The ladies of your own
These boweevils they'll rub you up at home
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
The first time I seen a bo weevil
He was sitting on the stair
The next time I seen a boweevil
He had his own family there
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
The farmer he took the boweevil
And put him on the ice
The boweevil said to the farmer
You treat me mighty nice
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
Alright
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
Alright now this next verse
Is about myself, and when im done I hope
You'll all sing along with me on 'he's looking for a home'
I said if anybody asks you people
Who sang you this song
You tell 'em its Jackie White
He's just been here and gone
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
Alright
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
They're all looking for a home
song performed by by White Stripes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Young Koekemoer (in reply to A. Brodrick)
Way back in the days
of the old Transvaal republic
in the Marico district lived a young farmer
called Hans Koekemoer, who was a great horseman
and a superb marksman
who crossed many rivers with his roan horse
and owned a Martini Henri rifle
and he was a great lover, skilled and sought by many ladies
and no other guy could compete with him
but one day an impi of Matabele warriors invaded the great Marico
burning down farmsteads, raiding cattle and killing farmers,
women and children
and the farmers were called up on commando
riding out on their horses with guns in their hands
and they fought bravely against that impi.
Hans by nature lived up to his name that meant cocky
firing from the saddle, breaking away from the commando
taking on a squad of the enemy
and he even followed them while they were fleeing
in front of him, trying to hunt the last one down
as he feared that they would capture or kill his beloved fiancée Sannie
and to the other farmers in the commando he was missing,
probably killed somewhere and while they rode back victoriously
their spirits were marred as they had lost the best young farmer.
Hans had been wounded and unconscious his horse
carried him to safety and a English missionary
came upon him removing a rusting assegai spear
and nursed him back to health
through a fever, bringing young Koekemoer back to life
over a period of some weeks
and just after his return to his farmstead
one of Hans Koekemoer’s cattle
was ill and he had to care for it through the night
and early the following morning while he was riding in the veldt
searching for a lost cow he saw a gathering of young men
galloping at speed in the distance
and first thought that it was a commando
that had gathered during the night and he rode up to them
and saw them passing a white banner
congratulating a bridegroom and bride and wishing them well
and they were riding at speed in front of a black coach
and Hans was curious about who had wedded so suddenly
and being cocky by nature forced the coach to a halt
and out stepped his girlfriend Sannie, with a Englishman,
a short wealthy shop owner
followed by Sannie’s father old dark Dirk Coetzee
an honourable man, a brave war veteran and a member of parliament
who wanted to know if young Hans had risen from the dead?
Young Hans replied that he wanted to talk to Sannie
the most beautiful girl in all of the Transvaal
who promised to wed him, swearing on the Bible
at the last communion service
and that he Hans could marry any of many a girl
and would instead drink a sip of brandy on her health.
Then lovely Sannie walked up to him
with a glass decorated with blue flowers in her hand
and he shouted: “to your health” before downing it
and Sannie was shaken but did not know why,
she looked into his eyes and forced a smile on her lips
and felt a spark going down into her hips
and he took her hand and looking into her eyes
kissed Sannie and her lips tasted of peppermint
from the shop owner’s kisses before his.
Sannie tied her skirts down before running hand-in-hand
with young Koekemoer
to where the roan horse was waiting on them
and the horse drew away galloping at full speed
while Sannie locked her arms around him
and in vain strong young Weppener, squinty Du Randt
and the rest of the riders gathered around the coach
jumped on their horses to catch up with them
and not one of them or her father
ever set eyes on Sannie again.
[Reference: Jong Koekemoer by A. Brodrick.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Patrolling raging neighbourhoods
Doing military patrols
in raging black neighbourhoods
at a time it felt
as if there would be peace no more
and that nothing
could end the mindless killing.
Humans necklaced with car tires,
sprinkled with gasoline
and torched alive
and the killing crowds’
inhuman laughter sent a shiver
down my spine.
Hatred shrilling madly
out of female voices
urging the killing
to go on
and the tragedy
of having to stop the slaughter
with a bullet and a gun
and graves with wreathed
pale white flowers
stretching up to the sun
made my soul to die
while I was still alive.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Under A Merciless Sun
Under a sun that burns merciless hot,
the wild wind and unrestrained weather
the farmer kneels humble before God
ploughs his fields, takes seed in both his hands
see the twirling wind from a distance,
then prays again sincerely to the Lord,
before he plants the seeds, ask for blessings
when his tractor pulls red dust from the field.
Big drops pour down for days without an end,
time and again the farmer thanks his God,
with a fresh smell coming from the wet earth
overnight all of the wild grass is green,
it’s dripping wet as far as he can see;
the farmer lives connected to God.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Malpractice
The crowd roars
Its deep and so unhealthy
The rest you know
Ill feel the hands that felt me
Cold hands
Your hands
Cover my mouth
While Im staring into bright lights
Applause
The crowd roars
The rest you know
Ten lovers violating
Cured
Discharged
Reach back inside
Knuckle white
Ruffle white
The crowd roars
They ruined and repaired me
The rest you know
The hands removed the bad thing
Miracle
song performed by by Faith No More
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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At Seven (Cavatina Sequence) (In Answer To Archibald Macleish)
Right through that summer the boy would wander
through the hillocks,
finding wild flowers, wild fruits and then left
burning hot rocks
and then returned to the large farmyard,
heard crowing cocks,
sneaked to the large shed on the heat of day,
while on business the farmer was away.
He would smell some diesoline coming from
the tank outside,
the oil and grease of the three big tractors
while he would hide;
ploughshares, the harrow, spades and picks
would be each side;
in his mind the farmer's harsh words had been:
'boys have to outside play, are not to be seen.'
[Reference: 'Eleven' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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