Why I Want To Be A Real Poet Poem by Gert Strydom

I want to be seen as a real poet
so that my poems,
will not be censured or banned
or disappear from poetry websites

when they do expose events and people
for what the truth really is
I do not specialise in hate speech
but do cling to the truth and to reality

especially the poems about the Anglo Boer war,
about Christian church leaders who state that Jesus Christ is a myth,
about the South African border war,
about the oppression in neighbouring Zimbabwe,
about the Jesus seminar people,
or about the tragedy of being oppressed
by the current South African ANC-government.

I do not want to be told by British poets
that it's okay to kill twenty thousand
women and children in concentration camps,
that in the blitz in London many more died
because they do not like a poem of mine,

if anyone do not like
the honest truth that I write
they can write a poem
as a answer to mine
instead of having it banned.

I want that people to react to my poems
as works of art,
rather than seeing me
as the party in each poem
and although their friendship
are sincere and is highly valued,

to value the written word above me
and where my poems answer
the poems of other poets
to read them as they are written
and to read those poems of others too

as I am free to write in whatever
style, technique and way that I choose
and I have written poems in every poetic form
that I do know to exist throughout the world.

I want the many African ladies
from Tanzania, Gambia, Botswana
and Sierra Leone or wherever they are,
not to comment at my poems
with their contact details

as a match for me,
or to send me emails
about how randy
some of my sensual poems are making them,
this is poetry, not a dating site.

I want my friends in Cuba,
not call to call me
an agent of the CIA
or an apartheid government stooge,
over a long forgotten war

that I was forced to participate in,
that is still haunting me,
where every enemy Cuban tank not shot out
was found still in prime condition
with occupants fleeing into the veldt
and I was forced to kill to survive,

I have never worked for
the American government
and I am a South African citizen,
I am an accountant and a poet
and this is poetry not another war.

I do not want to be seen as too deep,
too dark or profound, but to be understood
by even primary school children
if the subject matter is suitable
for them to read or hear.

I want to change the current country,
to change the world to a better place
for everyone

where people of my nation
are free to find a job
and opportunities are given on merit,
on qualifications and experience
not according to some oppressing law,
and I want the robbery and the killing to stop,

I want governments to think twice
before making innocent boys
deadly killing machines

and sending them to destroy,
to be wounded to be killed
to come back bomb happy,
more of a soldier than a man.

It's clear that some people see me
as raging, mad, seriously afflicted
over sensitive, a hypocrite,
a religious fanatic and being in love

and isn't a real poet
all of these things and much more?

But unfortunately the things
that I am writing about
is a lot of nonsense
and I really do not have a clue
in poetic styles, in rhyme schemes
in rhythm,
in free verse
and being a real poet
is totally irrelevant to me.