Nimbus clouds in the horizon cause me to panic. Growing up in the heart of the tropics Where storms would rush in and push down crops, Screaming at our windows, banging with water, Asking me to open and taste Noah's flood, What comes after nimbus seems familiar to me. The temperature drops, as the wind rises, And the sky goes from the blue that smiles On glistening leaves on grassy hills singing hope To a grey gloom gathering pain to dump on us. Expectant I rush to close the windows, Take in the corn, the egusi, the clothes: What can I do about imminent bad weather? Nimbus clouds in the horizon caused me to panic. Growing up in the heart of the trouble, Where storms would rush in and burn down crops, Screaming at our windows, banging with boots, Asking me to open and taste my own blood, What comes after greed seems familiar to me. When peacemakers were sent to jail To keep illegal funds alive for all, I saw bullets raining down on innocent Lives seeking justice, but seeing just this: Death, fires, death, destruction, death. What has been the darkest period in this? 24/10/2020? Or the baby in the bubbling oil? Or the beheaded teacher, or the beheaded cop? Or the razed villages, or Ngarbuh, or Fake dialogue, or refusal to bring peace? Nimbus clouds in the horizon caused me to panic. Not anymore. The rain pours from my eyes seeing dreams Splattered in pools of blood on school floors. "We will protect them!" Nobody did. The teachers, the parents are incriminated As grief seizes their hearts and constricts To kill, and swallow. But who cares? 7 dead, many living Where the bullets can still take them out. We focus on the dead, forgetting the living Living in a hell that bullets can't end. (c) nyonglema Eis requiem aeternam Dei : Victory, Jenifer, Princess, Telma, Rema, Syndi, ....
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My ancestors hate me?
Bring me a white goat he said, your fortune is bad he said. Leaning on the shoulder of my uncle, my cells shiver Even as I hear they're hot from the thermometer, My pounding head lets the sound in from his chanting, And my burning nose hugs my sintering eyes. White lines zig zag and jiggle with his dancing skin, The hazy bones on the ground tell him everything. He knows everything, especially things I don't know. He speaks with my grand mother and grand father, And even people further into my genetic past. But my mind couldn't sit still: A white goat? To appease my Uwu, who taught me to pair my socks To avoid tornadoes in the room when I find just one? Would Doh really hate his son's son to the point Of wishing him dead before any stub on his chin? The calligraphy of incensed smoke fills my thoughts, Staring at his mouth calling my aunts and uncles Who seek a slab over my unbreathing head. Is this where dreams all come to die? Where the Maker warned we will be misled into cavorting with Evil? My uncle tells me this is ok, tradition suggests, no, DEMANDS, That in times of trouble, we should guess through bones Which of those who love us in reality, through the smoke Can be declared jealous, heinous, whether dead or here, So we can hate them, and thereby build up this lie as truth. (c) nyonglema
God says it Humans write it Humans comment on it They reach consensus on it God sends one to bind it Humans reject Him and it Humans try to bend it Humans fight for it God saves it. (c) nyonglema When the Pope is wrong, pray, pray a lot. Even Peter was wrong, was corrected: Infallibility doesn't mean perfection Nor does imperfection mean fallibility Papacy doesn't make a mortal God But our immortal God maintains the Papacy Like Moses holding the stone tablets.
Requiem aeternam tibi, my dear brother, my dear friend. You sought peace on Earth, may you find peace in heaven. RIP Sampson Lemongoe Zaumu till we meet again. The golden glitter of floating clouds lift up the wings On the plane that carves out the way home. You stand and out your beard Breaks the smiles of years cheered By you and me thinking, saying, and doing the little things. On the plane that carves out the way home, I watch you go again: you never learnt to stop Until every task was done, And joy was everyone, And hearts spoke songs to each other in peaceful tomes. I watch you go again: you never learnt to stop! Nature set you back, the roads with vile treacherous trap Tried to take the clock But you never take a knock, You never say enough, you give and give, but never give up. Nature set you back, the roads with vile treacherous trap Changed our smiles for fears, our cheers are tears, But you wiped them away Telling us to be okay, While hoisting these little kids upon your fatherly lap. Changed are smiles for fears! Our cheers are tears Swelling inside and up our aching heart to our faces, Pouring out to be with you Seeking the tender “mchew” That says “It’s ok”, “It will be ok”, “Uh lahte”, “Why the fears?” Swelling inside and up our aching heart to our faces The dreadful whispers to Job seek our parched lips Wishing to curse the world In chaos and pain to all unfurled But the memory of that bearded smile halts those paces. The dreadful whispers to Job seek our parched lips, Like daggers to our hearts, but Mary took more than all, So calling on our Lord, As we watch you gently soar, May the golden glitter of floating clouds lift up the wings Of the angels taking you to her advocate arms, calling You to join the choir singing Hosanna to the King of Kings. (c) nyonglema
Fear of facts, fear of truth, fear of standing out. Fear of fraternal correction, fear of the hypocritical mob: "Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear." - Alan Paton I'm a teacher where the future flows from The ground. I water in the shadow of the clouds, As the sun fails at peeping at me, smiling proud. These tender blades look like mini green swords Although the arid air wishes to suck out the breath That fills their stomata, replacing it with death. Cool air rushes round my feet, as I side-step My precious lawn. Nature and I collaborate To heal the future, and watch it elaborate. But the clouds suddenly shift and the peeping sun, Like a Netflix nightmare, smiling at innocence, Paints them brown forever in masked silent violence (c) nyonglema
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Be #JenEus
Roses catch rays of sunlight in their red gaze, While a butterfly flutters by. Forget the butterfly. A blue jay descends on a ray, its wings ablaze, Throwing shimmering rays the way of the rose, And they play sun ray tennis, Bluebells, and sunflowers too are in that place, As the blue jay sings its song you'd hate to hear On a cold morning as dawn gently tickles your face, Half dreaming, half feeling your lover's arm Not too heavy, just cozy right, Singing lyrics that lull you out of sleep to haste The day away with chores, leaving the heartbeat Behind, and longing to return as the sun kisses the waves. I'm watching sun ray tennis between the blue jay And the rose, thinking about Love. You know, the Love that made the world and the days, Chose a people, and a cross, and who just Is. Yes. He said it Himself as Moses captured the phrase: "I am who is". He doesn't last, He just is, Like eyes locked in romantic embrace. Watching the blue jay, butterfly, rose and sun rays, Dancing their love around the halo they create, Bathed in the majesty of nature's ultimate masterpiece, I wish that all our love, all your love doesn't last, But rather, may this love always be. (C) nyonglema
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Immigrant President
Immigration brought America its first black president.
Sitting with this pen between my lips, as dad
Said not to, I'm twiddling and thinking of
Tigers looking into a mirror.
Do they see just the beastly muscle to rip flesh
Apart, or can they see the black, gold, silver, orange
Calligraphy of a meadow, plucked to glorious
Melody like a guzheng serenading the prey
Before Medusa's magic mars their future?
Do parrots notice the pale sparrow's envy at
Its militarily-decorated plumage which holds
Divine discourse with the sun rushing past
The leaves to caress a masterpiece chirping
Away under a pale green canopy craving its
Variety splash of colors upon itself?
Sitting and twiddling this ink, I'm thinking.
Are "precious" and "scarce" synonymous?
King Midas turned everything ordinary to something
Now ordinary, and by returning them to their
Ordinary state they became precious.
Could this be why I now miss the hair I hated to comb
In painful strokes? Or why I would prefer scrolling
My Twitter feed than feeding off my son's glorious
Imaginary worlds whence crazy stories spring,
But which I miss, because this is here, that is there?
Could this be why thrust from misery, to slavery,
Then to a land of freedom and opportunity whose
Prowess the paler countries of the world cast
Envy upon, wishing the variety splash of colors,
And music, and glory, and gold upon themselves,
The American from Africa focuses on the "African",
Missing the "American" in "African American"?
Could this be why other Africans come to America
And seeing the plumage, seize the Value in "American"
Live the American dream walking to Pennsylvania Avenue,
Saying "Yes we can!": but most Africans don't listen?
(c) nyonglema
Categories
Shiny shiny
A voice calls out in the wilderness, preparing
The way for Salvation.
The plan is laid out: the plasma'll start circling
Around His feet, as the notes melodramatically
Change, raising a cloud of multicouloured dust.
The rock LED-struck would lift up in those clouds
And the clouds of fairy dust would produce bread.
The crowds will watch in awe, hearts will turn.
Then standing haloed on the edge of a cliff
He would increase peril by facing the crowd
To meet the Pisa, but only falling to the rocks
Below.
But the drum of the beat will change 'fore his feet
Hit ground, as a flash of the S-chested angels
Whisk him up, leaving levitation to draw out
Cheers, kowtows, conversions, repentance.
Then foreseeing the weakness of the cross,
Bleeding, helpless, He would kneel.
Three years of wasted ministry prevented
By the brave act of trading this simple act
For the salvation of all the kingdoms of the Earth,
('Cause, you know, he who never lies said so.)
Having been assigned leadership to the King of
Heaven and now Earth, all souls would cheer
"Hail to the King, Hail to the King"
And Mission Accomplished, the Son would return.
A voice plans this all in the wilderness,
But it isn't the Baptist.
It's the bearer of all that's shiny,
Bearing light as a beacon to trap fickle hearts.
See how our Saviour chose the scenic route:
Not the glamour of human expression of worship,
He obscured the message with long boring
Parables, that contradicted the common-
Sense of the day, and mocked academia,
Nor the Hollywood-like production of miraculous
Miracles, spiced with convenient back stories;
He healed, resurrected but asked to
Keep such under lock and key until
The Cross had been revealed that
The focus be kept always on Love
Nor comfortable choices to make the journey
Of pain less painful than it needs to be.
He taught climbing out of one's skin
To remind us that human strength doesn't
Get good mileage, but a shared yoke
Kills usurper guilt forever,
He chose a cross, a quiet wooden cross,
That we never forget the Sacrifice:
For us,
But about the Father, and to the Father.
(c) nyonglema
Categories
Do it for Love
"One day you'll fall in love" I heard the knife stab my ear drums For that word had wheels with sturdy spokes And rolled away from the bleeding guillotine With the hearts it had stolen, then broken. Romeo fell up the balcony while the bats Roamed the sky, catching the bugs in his Poetry. The melody cast a shadow at Juliet's Door and with his head over her heels, Her heart was gripped by the lyrics Pouring into the secrecy of that instant. The crickets sang the background, and Everything heaven seemed to hang in the air, The breeze waltzed her hair, her dress Throwing shimmers to enthralled Romeo: Never to part, they'll live the ever after ... Romeo's dead, then fall Juliet. Over and over the Poison and the Dagger Start as toddler Egos, wanting what they want And nothing else. Led by the fear of Being on an island, we seek to put the Other in a cage, and have them lark Out our favorite songs to the rising Sun, with pretty feathers, as pretty As the bars that we have offered them To look out through. Who wants to be alone? So Romeo dared choose the suicide of women, And Juliet that of men, each conquering fear of Their worst death to defeat their worst fear, For who wants to be alone? Maybe it wasn't love after all? Maybe the judges gavelling unknowing children To a future of multiple homes, fathers and mothers Or single homes, with guns drawn across the parapet Aren't breaking love, but something else? Maybe I shouldn't fear the word as I've been taught By decades of soap operas, movies, stories And by this dog-eared blue and read Oxford dictionary. Maybe we're all wrong to think when we own A person, we are doing it for Love? Maybe love is giving it all, and even more Till we have no more blood to pour? Maybe Love has given it all, and even more, So we know how to love our neighbour? (c) nyonglema
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Socially Mediated Tyranny
Rivers have always flowed from frosty Caps on lonely mountains, down through tired Valleys, washing debris, trees, and bringing Life wherever they go. Splashing around, The water winds round rocks that would stop It. But it continues, tunneling through hills, Unstoppable. The river of life gets dashed against rock But also smiles round the same rock. Smile, camera. You switch on your phone and the f Calls your fingers into a world of glossy Glam. Flowers are more flowery, And trees are more greenery, And meals are more beefery, But teal seem to be in the tealery As each image tells you this truth: "You ain't sh....opping at the right shops! Your meals are too ordinary. Even your Guardian angel must be a frail-looking Nerd without the brains to match the title, But with just the brawn that can't lift an axle. You too don't have the six pack to share With friends; the thumb icon seems to point Down just for your life, Hearts for their smiles, Smiles, camera. Who cares where the river runs really straight, Uneventful, looking lazy, like mere luck? My Geography teacher, with his spitting glasses Told me (while I covered my face from, you know...) And showed me the meanders, the rapids, the water- Falls, the deltas, oxbow lakes, tributaries, And I asked: "What do we call this straight part?" And as he spoke, my mind floated away to possible names: "Never on social media episodes" "No need to take a picture moments" "Too ordinarily nice for TV" "Guttural silly laughter, not smiles" "No smiles, no camera" For we only pause to take a breath at The punctuation, That fills the river, the river, of life. Then we extrapolate from those singular Moments of beauty, happiness, whateverness, And assume that the tree bark is just As green as the leaves we glimpsed. Walt Disney figured this out really fast, And Mickey danced on the pages. You ain't sh... owing your talent. They are. Because that picture said so, And a less-than-a-second capture of light Is worth more than the ebbs and flows of your life, Like that punctuation wasn't part of A longer sentence... Oh! That we may all see that The river of life gets dashed against rock But always smiles round the same rock. Smile, camera (c) nyonglema
