The Flags At The Pretoria News Hangs Limp Poem by Gert Strydom

The flags at the Pretoria news hangs limp
hangs limp
while I walk to the bus stop
and a man with a straw hat
with a badge on it
carries a backpack
and is armoured with a leather jacket.

His white smoke clouds
curls into the morning air
and a schoolgirl,
gets a cigarette from him
and a small group
smokes with him.

a Air force officer
with a blue penguin cap
on his head
walks past like on every work day
and I wonder why he
has to be so early on his post.

I buy sweets from a street vendor
who also sells newspapers and cigarettes
and I see his fingers
counting sixteen in the cold,
before he replaces his hand
into the pockets of his coat.

The people are already
forming a hell of a long queue,
to catch a bus to Hatfield
and the air is this morning
rather grey than blue
and I wonder why
a young lady
keeps looking at me.

a Bus that looks like the right one,
stops a away at a short distance
where the driver
changes the sign
and it parks at the right place.