My siel op haelwit wolke

This is one of my own poems. It is a cento. A cento is a poem written using other author’s lines or passages. This ‘cento’ though has been written using my own poems. The poems I used are all from my Afrikaans poems. I do write English too, but as I said before, it’s just playing with words. I don’t try to be professional. I decided a few years ago to do my ‘bit’ for Afrikaans on the 14th August every year. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen last year and I couldn’t let another year go by without having one on this day! This is the history behind the 14th August.

The Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (Afrikaans for “Society of Real Afrikaners”) was formed on 14 August 1875 in the town of Paarl by a group of Afrikaans speakers from the current Western Cape region. From 15 January 1876 the society published a journal in Afrikaans called Die Afrikaanse Patriot (“The Afrikaans Patriot”) as well as a number of books, including grammars, dictionaries, religious material and histories. Die Afrikaanse Patriot was succeeded in 1905 by today’s Paarl newspaper. You can read more about this Society on this link on the site of Wikipedia.

If you are Afrikaans,  I hope you enjoy these couple of lines.

My siel op haelwit wolke

In gietende reën sypel my gedagtes: eindloos!
Ek stuur vir jou die goud
van sondeurdrenkte landskappe
in die galery van my stille gemoed.
My opgevoude gedagtes steek vas
en onderhou my geheue
wat onvermydelik verstrengel is
en soos gister
vind jy my siel op haelwit wolke;
my gedagtes wentel om die aura van my taal
en rol ragfyn ligstraaltjies voor my uit:
wat die tuimelende bergstilte
laat rol oor die dansende blou waters
na die holtes van my gedagtes.

==Nikita 14/08/2015 

Mantovani is one of my real big favourites. On this video you’ll find a whole library of his music to keep you company. I hope you enjoy!

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you would know that I do play chess myself too. I’ve blogged quite a few chess games in the past. This is one of my most recent chess games on chess.com Time is little to play rated chess games and I was tricked into this game, but managed to escape the worst. Rated games involve more concentration and I tend to play friendlies just for fun and I feel I can ‘escape’ or shut down from normal work and enjoy the game. 

I like how I managed to checkmate my opponent, though he was very close to checkmate me! I played white in this game – not my favourite colour, as I discovered I play better games when I play black. If you are interested, please click here to play through the game. If you are a chess player yourself, please feel free to leave a comment and Dan, if you read here, you might want to analyse my game…hehe.

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