Nightmares Poem by Gert Strydom

In the nightmare that I do sometimes get
the South African border war
and operations in Angola are alive again
with shots being fired, people dying,
the local population that suffers
and war that happens around me
when I barely do escape destruction
as if this past
is totally indelible
and my whole body does shake at times
when this dream
does repeat the previous reality,

I dream that I fall into a dark pit
into infinity,
sometimes do fall past stars and the whole universe
and become part of the naught,
that no parachute or any thing
can rescue me from this falling
till only I am living
with darkness everywhere

and where I have got a degree
the metric end examination haunts me
as if I have got to write it again,
are totally unprepared
and my university calculus
can make no calculations.

Sometimes my own future does haunt me
in premonitory dreams
and when I awake I laugh it away,
but when the events do later happen in real time
I do already know about them
as if destiny does walk step upon step in advance
but I do cling to the illusion of hope,
know about change
and better days that certainly will come.