All posts by nyonglema

I love to write to inspire, to salvage and to heal. I believe there's power in word and language that can cure all the ills which take away human love an life. Keep reading, you'll find yourself.
fear

Read and blacked #noViolence

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There’s a call from the depths of the shadows of the trees.
No, it’s but a whisper…no a whimper
A finger pointing to the sky as if to hold back its ghost,
By passing through the hook in the tail, where it anchored once
And gave purpose to the mouth, seeks the words.
Yesterday adrenaline threw a party and welled up,
As the radios piled up the tension in the atmosphere
In the warehouse of his soul. The finger lowers, slowly.
Maybe not this time. Maybe it will have to let go. Maybe the eagle
Will fly away with the message and alert the angels, or
Inspire a new way to change, a new way to love.
Just a whimper in the bushes, now red and black,
With caking blood clinging to the midribs as if
Scared to touch the screaming ground, where many dead lie.
Just a whimper, oblivious to those running around it, defending,
Taking bullets, giving bullets. This looks like some buffet
In Hell. Brothers are sharing a beautiful meal of hate,
While the future hangs on a finger, which wished for more
Than dying slowly in the clamour of unwanted war.

(c) Nyonglema

1st of October 2017, my kids almost lost their only great grandmum, but many parents shall have to bury their children, and some children will have to bury their parents. My deepest condolences brothers and sisters.

I don’t know about you, but a bullet never solved any problem. When the protagonists are all dead, all that’s left is hate in the hearts of the grievers, and revenge hangs heavy like the reek of putrid grudges. Hate begets hate, love begets love. Let’s be humble and love each other, for like with everything, you can only decide when the war is born, you don’t know the day nor the hour when everything is so torn that the war must die

Like with every positive message, I fear this will be read and blacked out…please share. Let’s stop the spiral of hate!

sadness

Growing ghosts #harvey

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The rain dance is drugged beyond reason to the point
  That the grass bends beyond reason till their points
Wave in the sludge pulling them downwards.

There’s hope, as new life springs from rain like the ides,
  But there’s lost lives and tears spring from rain like the ides
While families gather their seeds but can’t find any space.

Harvey’s on his way, but oh how those in the Sahara wish for one,
  Yet heavy damage’s done and they all sad-hearted wishing for sun,
While families gather lost seeds, and God reaches to heal each face.

(c)Nyonglema

fear

Food for soldiers #stopWar

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So, I’m experimeting with a new structure for poetry, to express contrast in the same poem, by juxtaposing two complete poems into a single poem 🙂 Crazy right?
We could call it Lego poetry …or nyonglema poetry (not too conceited is the bard hey?)
I attempt here to contrast what we spend on food vs what we spend on wars, then complain that there’s famine on parts of the globe.

Well, my first attempt wasn’t too successful; only the beginning was okish…so here goes the okish part of my lego poem 

How much should we spend on food    For soldiers
Rather than myriad weapons       To kill humanity?



And this is the full version: 

How much should we spend on food       For soldiers
Rather than myriad weapons        To kill humanity?
Blood fills the land where        all it takes is a
Little water to kill                Little greed and ill-
uminate green which         will breed new harbours
For humanity to be        filled with the stuff that
Heals, not which       kills everything down to dust. 

(c) Nyonglema

I’d like to know what you think of this new form and any links to your blogs if you attempt something in this form. I find it rather complex because each poem should be independent, and put together they should still make sense….complex huh? But it’s fun working with strict forms sometimes….it’s like a painting. Do you think the contrast adds to the meaning? Please comment below…

love

Happy anniversary #marriage

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These are a few words you can surprise your special other with on the day both of you publicly agreed to walk the special path of marriage. Use ad libertam!

Caveat: make sure they read past the first 4 lines …if not it may not end too nicely lol


You know I nearly forgot about today, and it’s all your fault!
Every day is the same, the damn same routine…and it’s your fault.
I didn’t expect this when I signed up, the fermentation of our malt.

But, every day is the same, the damn same routine…and it’s your fault.
You make each day shine the haloes round the sun into my nights,
You make each moment a golden drop bringing the hourglass light

And I didn’t expect this when I signed up, fermentation of our malt
Into refreshing beverage, dancing on my palate, soothing my bone aches
Healing my sore days, breathing for me the fragrance of lilies

But you know I nearly forgot today, and it still is all your fault,
For filling each day with the same magic of the first “I do”
And this day is same, another blessing from above in you.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Petals #old #time

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Ripe the garden plants, bright the flowers they bear
For bees to frolic and play till in future fruits be bare.

But I look at the flowers and see the petals fall.
Have you seen it before? Beauty and the Beast?

One petal drops to the floor: Thriller’s gone, the man in the mirror
fades into history, losing colour, washed by tears and more

The picture of the next petal on the iPhone blurs out while Steve rests
And Amy goes to buy the next one beyond our gardens with mellifluous voice

Harmonising Whitney, oh that’s a petal of my childhood I’ll
Misstep with tears as it sways and twists in the miracle of her wind

Not fast, not furious, gently falling, while Paul Walker walks
The stairway to heaven, staring at another petal on the aging rose

Of my youth’s laughter…oh Robin, oh Bernie, watch those petal go
Shall you make one more laugh infuse the pallid petal back to life?

And shall Chester and Prodigy harmonise with Anne Marie Nzie as another
Petal falls?

I watch them go, the falling petals, like the hair on my head,
Like the black in my chin, I watch the clock take one by one
And replace with something new, different, strange, something afraid
To ride my roller coaster heart, unlike those petals first to join
When life was a song, and the future was sunshine and childhood fun.

(c) Nyonglema

love

Divinely loving #marriage

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Once I saw Venician vines. Well it was in a book.
But I can imagine the Farmer picking the right ones,
Juicing into the barrels building His empire.

I can imagine reality matching the expert books
As the smiles of satisfaction pile in amounts of mounds,
Smiles shired in the balance and wit of an esquire,

The ones I saw in Venician vines welling towards a book
Of ancient days. He just made the flavours jump, bounce
Upon the buds of the thirsty around the fire

Past their imagined reality matching the expert’s books
That foretold a Sage to bless the joining of two ones
By blessing the water, the maid and the sire

Like once I saw in Venician vines. Well it was in a book
That I saw true love swell from seed to gigantic mount
And thought myself that love always ignites the ring of fire

Past our imagined reality, but patching the expert’s book
With a new tale of love, that I now see on a Nso mound
Like once I saw in Venician vines. Now this is your book
To outlast imagined reality, and dwell for aye in your children’s books.

(c) Nyonglema



So, my homie from Street 237 just did something marvelous, making me proud. I love that :-). God bless your years together guys!

sadness

Talking to glass #mum #RIP

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They say glass is made from sand, and I’ve witnessed
In documentaries how men take the so-rough-and-ugly
To make these marvelous pieces, that hold the best

Wine, whiskey, temperature, treasure. I had treasure once;
It wasn’t made of glass, but I lost it by my fault
And watched it pour into oblivion ounce by ounce.

I watched it freeze away, as my heartbeat slowed to nought,
And my smile blew away in the breathlessness of the air
Whispering to some distant mage: “This once I sought”

Injury of the soul beyond your finger on a sharp glass slice
And yes, I could feel the stitches coming lose where it dashed
For me. But the voice to save me is gone behind closed lies.

You know, lies like “I’m still here”, “I’m just sleeping”
Meanwhile the wood sips my warmth away, and nothing responds
To my smile calling away the tears, as all around me are weeping.

Where are those smiths to make a diamond from my broken hour glass?
Since glass holds the best, can I add some salt from my heart?
Oh, how it drills into my whole
That As my light the glass holds,
Leaving me in the dark staring into my resting past
It’s just a mirror for you and me, lost and forever apart.

(c) Nyonglema


This is for my dear mum Gaffo, gone to the Lord in 2009. I’ll never forget staring at her lovely face through the glass of her coffin, smiling at her, and so hurt that I’ll never see that smile again, that she will not smile back.

joy

Home #nature

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There’s an orchestra in the trees
A funny band they are, uniform with instruments.
The same notes rustle enchanted leaves,
Putting on a show for the feathery clouds pasted
Across the tapestry of God’s palace,
(For a carpenter, it’s strange He fancies blue)
Spreading before my eyes covered in awe
Taking it all in: the air pressure mounting Bucephalus to move
Feathers on the band, the sunlight stealing trinkets of colour for
My hungry eyes, the Earth of golden brown,
Holding years of history in stories it whispers to my consciousness
As I grab a fistful of my raw material.
Maybe I should seek a seat by those rowdy fellows
And watch their breasts vibe at the resonance
Of nature’s beauty.
Oh that band of one instrument.
One as an instrument taking me home.

(c) Nyonglema

joy

When it all falls down #rise

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Darkness will sure come
Like cloudy shadows on trees,
Wind swings in new hope

(c) Nyonglema

surprise

Why me? #poetry

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Sometimes I ask why me?
Sometimes, the night is darker than should be
Or the light just a tad too bright for me
Sometimes the water is Antarctica on my skin
Or I seek Antarctica to bring peace to my skin.

But why me with
These words to say what I feel and make you
Feel the light bouncing off a distant view,
Floating before your silent eyelids, telling
Tales from long ago, waking memories yelling
From your childhood, singing a song you knew,
But now forgot?

With these words healing through me,
Binding through me, loving through the vessel I am,
When a pen or keyboard stealthily lift up the dam
And the flood cannot keep, and the whole world holds its breath
While history fills up, but the Earth in all its breadth
Cannot answer, and I must just be still seeking, still me.

(c) Nyonglema