The pianist moves his fingers across the notes the flowers play
The violinists follow gently, in slow graceful movements
The guitarists cast the sun about with swifter motions to the wind
The percussions are harmonised by the enchanted tweets of birds
Watching the green orchestra turn the smooth morning breeze
Into music for the eyes and soul, and I only think: “Thank God”!
(c) Nyonglema
I’m mostly skin-colour blind, but in this post I want to reflect on the struggles within the black communities.
You know that moment you have to protect your kids from some particularly mean neighbour? Well you won’t be protecting them if you did the same to them would you? The question to most blacks is: “How much do black lives matter to you?” More than your money? More than your tummy? More than playing life with that fine body? More than greed?
The title is inspired from Don Cheadle’s line : “Another Dead Niggers Association”, while talking to Kendrick on Kendrick Lamar’s hit song D.N.A. This song looks at the heritage of the black communities and the conclusion is quite poignant: “Sex, Money, Murder – Our DNA”. You can read more about it on Genius.com.
.
Einstein is asleep in a Bepanda rubbish heap.
Newton is learning how to swim in Soweto poop.
Shakespeare is slumped in a car with extra lead
Losing the grams he suddenly gained on a Vegas road,
Then Dumas does same: different street, same oozing scenery.
D.N.A.
Is it a case of which or is it that each black life actually matters?
The geniuses seem to be electrons in the society’s first chapter,
Then the atom goes positive in self-wrought treachery
D.N.A.
You took Dube for his car, Njawe for his mouth, Lumumba for his mind, Pac
For his revolution, X for his convictions, Luther for his wisdom, Sankara,
For his vision, And their names scream from an unending roster in front of Peter.
Dead Negus Association
Then our mothers turn preemptive and kill
The next Mozart for fear of hunger, dump
The next Leke for fear of parental anger.
Where are the tears in these instants where the now seems better for all?
How to un-wrench my heart when the news comes out the radio speaker,
And the souls fly around one last time before going unaccomplished back home?
The miracle of the genetic mutation that brings genius to uplift our communities mostly gets lost earlier than on the blueprint:
Each gone by a gun or its mum.
(c) Nyonglema
People will treat you the way you treat yourselves. May blacks love their neighbour more so that hating you doesn’t look anymore like something you taught everybody. Love black lives
No !
You’d think “Maybe” if you listened to the complaints about Sogea-Satom’s slow operation lasting beyond schedule and creating craters cradling cars to sleep in watery coffins.
It’s 5:30pm, I’m on my way home.
Slowly in first gear through one I go.
Slowly through the second I go.
No. I tell you they aren’t civil.
I brake.
To my right are two lanes of cars blocking pedestrians trying to stomp the pavement, and the cars honk as if right, and fight for right of way, while the police stare dismayed, and the rest on the normal way display anger, frustrated for they know all those will go first, not they, unless they go for the throat of the pedestrians and throw care away.
Clutch out, first gear, it moves. I brake.
There’s been days 10km turned to 100
And days 10km became as long as a trip to Kenya
When from the airport the person boarding calls you in traffic, “I have arrived”, and you bash your brains on the steering in a Kobain tantrum, and look right at those civilians as a bunch of Brady Ians when you consider they aren’t civil.
Clutch out, accelerate a little, and then brake.
One’s trying to skip the line in front of you as the police arrive and raise an index finger to remind them that the pavements are for feet, and it’s a car a lane, and she struggles with you not caring if her rush to arrive is marred by her marring your patient eagerness to see your home by scratches and dents on metal…hopefully she doesn’t.
Accelerate, brake, my soul breaks.
What’s wrong with these people? The same sad song daily, and the same solutions are brought daily, but learning is water on a ducks back so…
Clutch out, accelerate, brake.
(c) Nyonglema
Everyday is a new opportunity to get a new beginning in your life. Life walks around distributing lemons, what are you going to do with them? Make lemonade or leak tears?
A man used death to save the world!
____________________________________
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia
The Lord is risen, the flood in Eden
Has ceased this morn, Alleluia !
My joy was hidden, in death’s throes shivering
Till bright light shone, Alleluia
My soul met Evil and thought it was even,
But oh…hope won ! Alleluia !
Alleluia, the choir’s wings shiver
To swell up the storm of Alleluias
Alleluia, the choir sings forever
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia
Darkness broke with the wake of the globe.
As it spun the light into sight, Apostles woke
To the shrill voices of hope who’d gone with balm
But brought back joy that whole nations will calm.
Alleluia, no tremors no splinters
When my Lord came hither, Alleluia
Alleluia, off came the fetters
When the Word came home, Alleluia
God’s face was my brother, the cross brought bother
But oh…hope won, Alleluia
Hope’s all my fodder, but life was asunder
Till bright light shone, Alleluia
Yes, He is risen, my soul praise the heavens!
Death ceased this morn, Alleluia!
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
(c) Nyonglema
Slap miss bite reach me
Droplets gone new droplets on
Kill blood cells kill me
(c) Nyonglema
No strawberry, no mango, no raspberry or sour fruit,
Just me, angry honks buzzing overhead, while smoke stabs the planet.
A seed is sown, a green one that whispers jealousy, painted
With the blood of all those cars on another way, going ahead, going away
While angry honks buzz overhead, and I’m still, stabbing the planet.
It’s jam, there’s a little too much of it in the glass jar,
Staring at me wicked-eyed, like : stay there, let the ants
Eat your sticks on the clutch, while you wish to shift the stick.
The sun gets bored, the wheels move an inch, no just a pinch
Of the jam. It dips it in vinegar and pours on my tongue, water
Water, cars all around, but no water in site, and no shops in sight
And no bottle inside my hell, where the air conditioning drones
And the air mocks my impatient fingers drumming on the wheel, to the
Rhythm: heartbeat, temple vein, anger, heartbeat, temple vein, bigger
Stick shift, clutch, move, heartbeat temple vein, honk, frown, bigger
Thinking about jams, how delicious they are with bread, strawberry, other
But how this jam is going to call the raven on me stabbing the planet,
Stuck in the evil stare of the glass jar, wishing to shift,
That’s a real bother.
(c) Nyonglema
There’s the impatient man stomping the time away,
And the kid pushing the buttons that raise the hair
And temperature, and voice of his parents, running around.
The screen flicks through the album it was given,
And the speakers blare out exactly as they are told to.
She’s on the phone, clutching it like a deep sea dive
Scuba. She listens, answers between gasps and
Muffled tears pushing out of the cocoon heavy on
Her heart
It’s broken.
She nods while a hand wipes her cheek.
Her wet knuckles listen, and her cracked lips answer.
Even the bags hanging like weights around her crimson wells
Cannot contain the pain, it seems.
I’m holding my pen, and I look on.
I dare not ask lest my heart break.
I dare not ask lest my ask breaks in.
We all from our eyes’ corners watch her dissolve away
And start asking questions:
“Did she just lose somebody dear to Death?”
“Did she just love somebody dear and he left?”
“Did she just lose her job, and tells somebody dear?”
Only, nobody touches her shoulder and asks her;
We ask ourselves.
Nobody spares her knuckles the teary chore,
Nobody cares.
(c) Nyonglema
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