Whispers in the Night #supportWidows #supportWidowers

This is a poem I submitted as a submission to a competition on Poetry Soup. The idea was to write lyrics to the instrumental Life story by Peter White. Maybe you’ll hear me sing to this soon :-). But you go ahead, have some fun with the words, and share to your friends. Who knows, this could be your The Voice moment.


Whispers in the night, longing for your ears
To drown every fear
But the sorrow sleeps with me tonight.


Whispers in the night, saying a bitter prayer,
Gone the summer cheer,
Only cold snow fills me deep inside.


Remembering the fun-filled laughter, the dreams we shared;
Together we made it: built that home of kids and bricks.


Remembering the hurtful wards, the chemo and meds,
That instant you were mine, then reality killed me: us was history.


Whispers in the night, saying our favorite prayers
Seeing you everywhere
Your smell still lives painfully in this house


Whispers in the night: “Oh why not a few more years?”
Still so much to share!
Nobody to hug and care for life!


Remembering the fun-filled laughter, the dreams we shared
Together we made it: built that home of kids and bricks.


Remembering the hurtful wards, the chemo and meds,
That instant you were mine, then reality killed me: us was history.


(c) Nyonglema

The Irony of the Red Smiling Cyclops #nuun #nassara #genocide #isis

It appeared on the doorpost as a Cyclop’s smiley face
For some Cyclops WhatsApp icon, but red-themed application
Yes gruesome red, in contrast to the expectation
You would get from a smiley face, even for a Cyclops.
It quizzed my curiosity and I dug further on Google’s interface.

It appeared on the search page as the queen Isis,
Long told in Hieroglyphics, Cyrillic and Roman alphabet,
Patroness, mother, queen, blessings with love met,
But unlike these grim Arabic script in an ominous logo,
And tales of death, pain littered with deeper crises

It told of “nuun”, 14th letter of a blessed script
In which many beautiful and wise thoughts found life,
A letter which told of blessing and not of strife
Being in a position multiple of seven, a number blessed
By God Himself when he Earth and Heaven in 7 breaths whipped

It told of the Magen David, a shining star, which should be a good thing
Only that it brings memories of gaunt bodies piled in trucks
And human experimentation, and as history at our door knocks
And Isis or Isil opens to let in what we dread most
“Nuun” is stuck in my iris with pain and scary sting.

For I have seen the blank stare of heads painting in red drips the pickets
And Leonidas’ 300-style gore re-enacted in modern city streets
As heads are divorced from bodies and all around are scared heartbeats
For even bloodied child clothes cover head-less bodies,
As Christians are beheaded like one would roast crickets.

It brings back memories of my ancestors up in the Samba regions,
Fleeing the harsh choice given to them by the jihadists:
To adorn the village picket or join the cause of the Islamist,
Forced to create a third choice, which was to leave their homes,
Friends and family to pseudo-Islam or lurid lethal lesions.

Is it that time again for Iraqi Christians?
Shall the world once again watch the Red Indians’,Tutsis’, and Jews’
Story take gruesome form and hack through human sinews?
How many litres of innocent blood, and kilogrammes of hacked human flesh
Are needed to realise the vanity in the life of Homo sapiens?

(c) Nyonglema