I’m looking at you,
To find a better summer,
The letters just blink
(c) Nyonglema
I still remember when you were but members kicking in the air,
Reaching for my hair, my glasses, mouth bare, wide stare
Living life to the full without a fear, and very little care:
Your empty stomach, full diapers, or when dada or mum’s not there.
Yes, your gums gleamed for the future white to grow there,
And the first push through brought your mum-mum to crazy cheer,
And brought you and gramma and mum to some hospital chair,
To tend a fever…shame most of these times I was on foreign stairs.
The pictures brought me joy too, and I showed each peer,
Like “Check that out, the teeth are showing” to their blank stare
Of non-understanding, or about-to-jeer, or I-don’t care.
But that little trophy was mine and mine to carry everywhere!
Then they multiplied: more incisors premolars and each year
There was more to show in your mouth than in some trade fairs!
We were proud, but I bet as high as your head was your care
For the diamonds pushing through your gums as if fore’er.
But now I can feel the stab of the salty streak of each tear
That poured out as four years later the incisive pioneer
Lost its hold and you panicked and at that time we weren’t there
To guide you on this change that to you was a great scare.
But but how could you have…but but….Mummy….
How could I have known that things strong one day leave?
How could I have known that this time it wasn’t a pet peeve
And that that last heave for breath is the last you’d give?
How could I have known that so soon we would all have to grieve?
You were decisive and strong, standing through the toughest
And the roughest weather you brushed off your body’s surface,
And put on a warm face, smiled to heal the pain in my sore nest
Where the eggs of hope were being infested by hornets.
Mummy…
Like my little boy living life not thinking about the whites,
I loved deep but saying “I love you” was an Isaac sacrifice,
And by your bier, staring through the glass at shut made-up eyes,
I’m saying “I love you” as if to thaw your face and skin of ice.
(c) Nyonglema
I just realised after writing this today morning that this is the first poem I’ve dedicated to my late paternal grand mum thinking about her on this day dedicated to older persons, who struggle in the modern world. The real coincidence is in the fact that this is happening on the day of her patron saint : St. Theresia.
So what can I say, RIP beloved Tsimi Theresia Pisoh aka U’uwu, we loved you lots, and we’ll see again by God’s will.
It’s night, and the termites are misting the veranda
On which we sit together and swat away, missing and hitting,
Then retire to the inside, you, my siblings and I.
I’m too young to understand the words you bandanna
About my head of past events like the friend you were skitting
In that one story, painting to us your comic side.
The smile on your face for the happy tales from that long ago
Lights up my heart, even though I don’t understand the sentences,
Nor the importance of understanding them now for later.
The tears that hide from the sad tales, from the gun and bomb echo
As you ran in fields at that first war, have my heart on picket fences
To see that pain, to relive through the jaws of the alligator.
But I relished every instant you brought us to that far away era,
And the candy you shared, and the advice…not always followed
My encyclopedia, my history book, the only type of history to love.
I felt Death toy with my infant soul each time he came a lil’ nearer
And the doctors would struggle to keep with you that breath borrowed,
Giving me more life, more time to really internalize what you spoke of.
It’s night U’uwu, and you’re not here, and I regret when I couldn’t sit
To care for my lovely gramma, wondering where you get all these stories
Wondering why an adult would need so much support, while dad, mum
They’re so strong, so big, like you, diving in and out of lion pits,
Lifting mountains, I thought you were strong, U’uwu, your allegories
Were stronger than dad’s, mum’s, and you’d given dad strength serum.
Where did it go? Why do you walk so slow, while you ran in your tales?
Where did the teeth go? Why are you bent over, U’uwu, what’s wrong
That your strength fled your body at time’s command, leaving this frail
Person, unlike the picture I could make from the time of bomb hails?
And now you’re gone U’uwu, and I miss you after answering my question
As dad,mum get your ageing strength, and I crawl behind on that same rail.
(c) Nyonglema
The wind gusts kissed the rain drops when we met in that MRS station :
Two souls seeking shelter but finding fetter for love in total elation.
Loving each instant of evening trips, the knighting pose to propose,
The stressful preparation together, and the white fairy wings we chose
To carry me to the next level of our bond, you in black, me in white
Sealing this bond, this bond, this bond, with one golden knot so tight
You said you’d be the third set of footsteps in the sand of my homeward journey,
Lifting me to the Lord’s arms, chaining your sad days to my listening gurney
Walking me to the Lord’s arms on that day we all must give back our depth
And lie together lifeless dust on lifeless dust playing the game of death.
Together in life we raced the shopping bustle, beat the crowded morning hustle
So should release every muscle at the same time to make simultaneous fossils
The wind gusts are kissing rain drops in another bland dying MRS station
And one soul seeks shelter or fetter but finds neither in total desperation
Hating each instant evening weeps, pics jocose now a dead wilted rose
The stressful separation, bad weather and the dark dreary things that I chose
To put in the box to carry you to the next level of God’s bond of light,
Killing this bond, this bond, this bond with one last breath … then night.
You said, you swore in breaths of love and swore and said some more
That you’ll be there, that this heart will never be bare, that sad yore’s lore
Of Capulet’s daughter’s end was never coming near this bond this bond this bond
And wound up leaving me standing alone, rended, shattered, worthless mound,
Lost, battered with tears digging ditches on these cheeks missing your every kiss,
Pale, scarred, marred, a fossil of some other time that knew something of bliss.
The wind gusts are fighting the rain drops in another dead MRS station
And I’m standing tethered to the past, seeking instant solution or re-creation.
This man’s one of God’s keeps, and sure has a solution to brighten my prose
For I’ve seen his promise take form in the sight of a blind man at his shows.
Oh! To find the third steps and make this burden of loss once again light
I’ll trust these words which God’s given this human creature of might.
-Then later… –
The wind gusts are gone, no rain drops in the dusty lonely MRS station
And I’m lying down praying my last, abandoned and in want of some medication.
That man standing’s not God’s tweet! Yes I paid in cash for all my throes,
But never got sight, never walked, just paid more and more to feed my woes
Oh come long lost love, lead the way to the tunnel bright with God’s light
To rebuild this bond this bond this bond in one golden knot more tight.
(c) Nyonglema
5, 10 and 15 are the hours my body chooses to remember:
Waking up abruptly to the hateful chorus of mechanical clocks
To face the day at 5am with short thermometer fluids.
Then at 10am the buffaloes stampede to the stream, the slide,
A swing overworked while a throng stand and wait to turn,
Unable to see 10h30am where the fun all ends. The balls are working too,
Until all have to wear sad faces at the classroom door.
15h00 to familiar aromas, tastes, visuals, and instead of homework,
I’m studying stage 2 of Super Mario Bros with A-B-C, then X-Y, then L-R
Hoping dad and mum are late enough that I finally make it over
The mathematical complexity of leaping over this gorge!
However, between the 5, 10 and 15 is the treasure my brain will remember.
Glue, match sticks and cardboard were Picasso’s iceberg tip, like me
Then letters like weird glyphs found meaning in a word ballet
On the pages, chalkboards, white on black wisdom screeching in the heat
And my eyes were still sleepy from late night Nintendo adventures.
The smiley faces became ticks, the ticks became grades, the grades
Became appraisals, and each aimed to keep me from straying
And make that other kid proud that he stayed furthest ahead of the pack.
The pressurized air bounces around the room sans-echo:
Years of research presented to my ignorant brain in seconds
And over and over again, I finally get it, and scorn those blokes
Of years past who couldn’t figure out that the apple WILL fall down.
Do it like this, not like this! Manners, planning, praying:
I soaked them all up in floating waves around my ears near my peers,
Till soon I was so filled, I was letting them out to other sponges.
Sadly, none of that ever fixed the chicken scratch I call handwriting!
5, 10 and 15 those three numbers which represent all you were to me:
End of nursery, end of primary, end of secondary and start university!
At each junction you stood, waiting to direct me, and whip…mean correct me.
Thank you the teachers who’ve made me who I’ve become today,
Who shaped the words I’ve chosen to write
And the way I say the jokes which make the souls of friends light.
You’re the garden of the world, for all that is dark and all that is right,
The under-looked power changing the world with red pen, white chalk and black board.
(c) Nyonglema
R.I.P. Mum…you’re the teacher I miss the most, till we meet again!
Leaves flooded your dreams of youthful nights:
A young caterpillar crawling about the jungle
Dodging the sight of hungrier beasts in the heights,
And the ground beasts dreaming of you and their tongue.
A white streak in a ballet of windy green leaves,
Gripping, then crawling, then gnawing near the midrib
Then gripping, then crawling, watching what the spider weaves
As flies dance about as if they knew there was no return to their cribs.
A tough silken box later and you’re clothed in glory
Vestments singing bright colours for the whole world to know
Fluttering fleetingly from bough to bough in a fairy story
Where you’re king, queen, prince, horse and coach
I know you reminisce the crawling and gnawing of youth
But Time’s persistence is such that you can never have both.
Remember as you wish those days that, in truth,
History’s devices need be adapted for the present to suit.
(c) Nyonglema
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
The butterflies don’t fly around anymore where I live
Nor do bees weave honey out of the sweet notes from trees.
Outside there’s quiet, so quiet even the colours took leave
And the dim light scoffs the darkness dancing around me
The fireflies died eons ago. Those notes of the piano
I long to hear turned to screeches within each cord
Of my soul: broken chords, broken hope more than you’d know
The cling clang of my chains and my beaten soul are in accord.
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Yes the steps outside, those steps I hear as I fall
Into this abyss I love, those steps keep knocking and get denied
Entry to my cosy coroner of paradise which tends the walls
Within which I cage myself: this body I’ve hatefully knifed.
I clutch the bane and nurse my pain as my very own kin
And wish they could float in, wishing the owl’s hoot
Were not real, and they could pass through any- and everything
That the nightmares in my reality were entirely moot.
How shall I let them in to take away my pleasure
My treasure, my precious tender executioner?
The butterflies don’t fly around here in any measure
And the bees fled the pestilence in this corner.
(c) Nyonglema
It’s 8pm again, and by my clock it’s time to shut eyes and dream loud
But, by the clock of who run this place, it’s not that time yet…no not yet
The butterflies have called a meeting with snails in a crowd
While the legos still have to drive up the air to the mountains
And the ideas keep flowing out their youthful fountains
And then everything is a reason to complain in shrill air waves
And contort when grasped, then toss the toys to care’s arms
And while we count on Reason to make them behave
We are at war with forces beyond our deepest understanding
Kids who feel it’s not time yet to go to the land of dreaming
(c) Nyonglema
There are guns shouting fear through your window shutters,
A bomb blast breaks your neighbour’s home and you’re running down the street.
The kids don’t get it. They don’t get it: why is there blood in the gutters?
Why are hands without bodies, heads with gaping mouths, missing severed feet?
The screaming gets louder, and it’s on your spouse’s and your shoulders
To save them from a threat, unarmed, untrained and the closest
You’d come to death were those Expendables movies in your hard disk folders.
The banks are shut, the bus system is shut, you never even had a Toyota starlet.
What would you do if it were you? If you’re playing metal gear solid in your own town?
Only this time, you have one life, no continue nor save, and to your untrained self are tagged
More untrained and even naive souls counting on you’re strength in this showdown.
What would you do if the only option was either death by exhaustion or having your head bagged?
(c) Nyonglema
A stab straight to the heart,
A flicker of hope gone away,
Forever present, a cancer on your skin,
In the bones or other frail tissues,
Coming to you when you least expect;
In every respect your closest companion.
In everyday it plays a part,
Like a tax you owe, you must pay!
Burden on your shoulder, a fragile kin,
Engendered from salient issues.
A kin you know you can’t neglect,
‘Cos though unpleasant, must be in the union.
Yes, though it is in your skin a wart,
A messenger teaching you to apprecia’e
The un-corrupted areas of skin,
To keep those bubbling insults in disuse.
Instead look at what good’s left, and delect
In the life-learning process; an important pinion.
You run away, you waste your millions,
No escape, you are the next to infect.
Water fills your failing sinews,
He’s stuck with you, no fleeing!
Your closest companion on everyday,
When you least expect he is taking part.
(c) Nyonglema
Count your blessings
Hit the mark more often
Reading, Writing, Hearing and Tasting the Art of Life
When reluctance gives in to the urge of expression....
waghni 