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.
love

Rhum #loveLost

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I just stumbled on this piece I wrote way back in high school and would like to share with you. It’s about the throes of a young man in a sweet relationship. Of course, he takes his babe for granted, not letting her know what’s going on below, and she gets snatched up by another. Hopefully, most are strong enough not to follow our friend here in his downward spiral…

 

I gave my heart away
Would have sworn it was not for a day
Here I am bathed in tears.
Yes it was a lot better in those years
Together hand in hand, shunning peers

What went wrong?

Chatting happily about that song,
Or about the latest Jan de Bont,
Hearts melded like metal.
Long I though it was wattle
And daub we had, what a bite from a rattle!

Remember those moments?

Smiling, laughing, running even in torments
To the flicks or home, green bills or no cents!

Even back home,

Tender caresses, my hand in that hair,
The mass of ebony enchanting strands, showing care
Kisses speaking our hearts,
Your skin flowing like malt.

Honey, cool times we had

You are a miracle halo!
Should have spoken earlier, but lo,
The sky’s getting wearier. But woe
Was bound to come!
And so was born regret: rhum.

My heart is gone, all left’s rhum,

Alcohol till life’s dusk.

(c) Nyonglema

 

I can hear the rhum gulps at each drop down into the abyss…..

fear

MIDNIGHT CANDLES (2002) #halloween #ghost

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Eerie winds slithering over their breathing;
Flickering flames: little fireflies in the cold night.
Twinkling stars, no moon, five hearts beating,
Calling on the phantom that had inhabited his body;
Many bright dots on the slope flanking the apical church.

Mounds of earth lying by pounds of cement,
Crosses sticking out from each morbid rectangle,
Five brains wishing there was that sky crescent.
Five murmurs whispering the antique incantations.
In spite of the wind, the lurching little bright dots could not be botched.

Many frightened hearts beating, eyes observing the dark building.
What could five and candles be doing in the cemetery?
The dead are put to rest, and rest they should till the Lord’s wielding.
Five bodies ghastly illuminated by frail flickers,
Ten lips moving to disturb his rest.

Many cars honking below, noisy engines working;
Deep in their covers, many snoring unsuspecting;
The bats are squeaking, crickets screeching;
Nuptial croaks from the stream, that’s what some are hearing.
But some are eagerly watching,
In their eyes, the reflected bright specks are fluttering.
Five people are waiting in their hum for this appearing,
Five souls waiting to communicate with his ghost.

(c) Nyonglema

love

Last sight #supportWidows #supportWidowers

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I shut my eyes on Her twisted face,
All writhed in sorrow, my pain in Her innermost.
All hopes dead, an end closing in.
Slowly, I closed my heavy eyelids,
Rest I must; rest this divine pottery
Bathed in years of loving teardrops, Her sorrow cutting my innermost.
I glanced back at Joy,
Saw Him retreating stealthily, suavely fleeing;
I called to Him, but fixed His bearing was:
Home with me He would; He went ahead,
Leaving those eyes I had wiped flooded, but drying up.
Then She broke my thoughts, uttered Her thought.
And how I wished I could hear that conjecture by
Her now mellifluous voice; before I would have used cotton
To spare my ear Her nagging torture.
Then I looked back at Memory.
He sat on an old rock, most eruditely clad,
Told me of my siblings, peeps, my parents,
Slowly unfolded the reel of tears and smiles,
Stones I had kicked, stumbles dotting the pages;
My first beard, first girl, first beer;
This whole learning process as it was,
As it slowly neared its end.
Told of 14 years of school (bookworming)
The pain of seeing no further than my arm:
A marking handicap branded on me.
He told me of Her, how She groomed me,
Before and after I was Her groom.
His eloquence so captivated me,
I suddenly came back, my eyes shutting.
I felt some dying shocks on my thorax.
They must have been trying to re-establish the life distributor.
Again, I saw Her face, cupped in her hands
Like no pain, horror, sorrow
Could violate the barrier created.
The look in Her eye told me She knew;
She knew what I knew: solace would not come.
She read my goodbye and I dove;
Uwu and Mafou and granddad stood waiting,
Arms open, received the escapee,
As medics shocked the inanimate flesh on the bed
And my shut eyelids took me far off; home,
With Memory, Joy, Uwu and Mafou
Telling me of it all.

(c) Nyonglema

love

Meine Trännen #loveLost #divorce #breakUp #cheating

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Wenn ich mich noch daran erinnere,
Wie die Trennung so plötzlich kam,
Verstehe ich gar nicht was schief ging.
Denke noch daran, wie schön alles anfing.
Wünsche mir, dass alles nicht so lief.
Eine aufgegebene Höffnung, die Liebe war nicht tief;
Sogar schwach, was fandst du schön in mir?
So eine Geschichte wir hatten, es war angenehm mit dir,
Aber jetzt ist es vorbei, und es bleibt nur das Gedächtnis.
Wenn ich mich noch daran erinnere,
Lange Nächte hatte ich, du warst mir nicht treu.
Immer kämpfte ich das Neid, ich bereue
Nicht dich gekannt zu haben.
Du hast mir gezeigt
Wie schlecht eine Frau beisst.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Fade Slowly Away #humility #memento homo

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The silent slither of the spring sun
Swept over the seed. Timidly the shoot sprung,
Rising through storms, oblivious of mean thunder,
Scorning the shrubs which struggled for light under,
And those shrubs would fade, fade away.

Violent winds, silent breezes, it stood through weather’s caprice,
Braving drought, bathing in rain, strong through Aprils,
Till flowers dawned on its face; adorning.
And Nature paused in wonder adoring
And its gaze could not dare be swayed away.

Miles were trod and years flew by,
The proud-flowered still stood with style
Amidst the lower creatures, ruling and all,
And through winter cold grew in beauty and all
While others would wither or be cleared away.

Violent men have conquered and built empires theirs,
But all went up, and as gravity holds, returned to their peers.
So was nature cast, to the misfortune of the seed,
Which in beauty was so deceived as to scorn. So nature did
Turn its eyes away, and the flowers faded slowly away.

(c) Nyonglema

surprise

Tired #workDay #9to5 #labour #job #fatigue

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Pins are pricking my poor body;
It’s night and the owls are gone.
The roar of horsepower have replaced their song,
And night is now a lonely toddy.

8 hours on farming my payroll eagerly,
With sweat and tear; each minute is scarce.
So rushing around the hive, looking for my fares
I don’t feel pins pushing into my day’s load stealthily.

As the night crawls in, and the boss calls out;
And the office shrinks, and the lights go out,
And the files pile up, and litter sleeps about,
My face sinks as this routine goes day-in day-out.

Don’t think wrong, my love’s my job;
But just like Job asking the Maker about woes,
I scratch my pain, stretch my back and nurse my throes,
And watch these pins sinking in like desert drops.

At last at home, lying on a couch to think
And scribble my thoughts in a big blot of ink,
I start to feel the pins relish as they sink
The pain of fatigue into each one of my limbs.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

The Return #soldiers #war #stopWar

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Pam-de poodle-pam
His eager war-worn fingers tapped away;
Home sweet home! How glad!
No more late night crawls,
Stealthy whispers; all will be better.
He stares at the dying sun, how glad!
Straight home, to the arms of his weary-with-waiting family.
All the dreary things he had seen, done;
The foetid smell of vicious powder at every shot,
His fallen friends, the disturbed erupting rubble
At each bomb blast!
Only homewards!
The truck pulled lazily away,
Grumbling at the load: a hoarde of weary fighters
Hope and ammunition spent, with hunger double bent;
Pulling sorry faces, Shakespeare could not have imagined better!
But under those scarred wrinkled overgrown brows
Flickered in their searching eyes
Some hope, hope of home comfort.
The truck plodded lazily on;
They chanted: one dead song it was;
Like ten drunkards at an opera.
Oh, but for the fallen, how much better it would have been!
Those memories plunged into his dud brain,
Digging tears from his stone-chiselled heart,
But he fought back; a soldier does not cry.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Trapped #loneliness

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Once I strode in February’s sunny clothes,
And flowery fields and melodious fragrance thereof,
And there, set my nose
To receive that love
Of nature for a meek mortal moping along.

Then I set my ear to hear birds cheer
As each peer blended tweet and chirp with debonair.
“How blessed!” I sweared
And danced in the bare,
With the air of memories of past royal fairs.

Then I set my ear as one sang out of tune;
A young flown off too early, but crashing on the flower dunes,
Saharan in their beaut’
Like Kalahan before the prefix “Super”
He was lost and it stirred thoughts of pity in my top cocoon.

Steeped in beauty sublime, though heavy in my core,
(and heavier yet my heart was before a sight so sore)
I walked over
To hold the fallen soldier,
While brooding over thoughts obscure and heavier than the pain I bore.

I softly made approach, and it fluttered to the rear,
Wrapt in goose fear, I looked up to his peers
And beckoned as it would hear,
While I approached with measured care
And the weeds slowly recovered as my foot rose slowly into the air

And softly settled before me; I’s still wrapt in its tune
Which with orchestra frenzy was shriller and sang of doom
To long gone parents, who
Would have saved it could
They. One frail voice drowned in the insouciance of elders so rude.

(c) Nyonglema

fear

Fading Smoke #collateralDamage #stopWar #peace #bombs

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I wave my blistered hand before my bleeding face,
Waving gunpowder smoke and blood fumes in the mist
To see the survivors, to see hope.
But all I see is crushed bones and leaking skulls;
All around the steaming tarmac lie lifeless lads,
Lost lives fill the air with more choking tears.
But we can’t cry now!
“Run! Run! Before they cast another bomb on us!”
I’m on my feet, staggering forward like an alcohol keg,
Surprised to be running alone to the porous camp shelter;
Oblivious to pain, oblivious to care, I stagger on.
Hoping to get my weapon and answer their fire.

It is then it dawns like a wooden blow on me:
I’m no soldier; they aren’t either!
Infant body parts entangled with women and men’s blood
Litter the town square, and I’m staring at the military shelter:
A wooden icecream stand with holes on the whole frame,
And blood , and burnt flesh reeking in the foetid smoke;
And… I break into tears.

(c) Nyonglema

love

I Am #divorce #brokenHome #cheat #alimony #home

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I’m the anchor chain plunging into the deep,
Summoned by the sombre sea bed, taut and steep.
I’m the anchor chain torn between the deep and the ship,
Serving both the anchor digging the sea weeds,
And the ship ripping me off the anchor’s hold in its speed glee.

I’m problem land, trapped between two owners;
One person’s shouting curses, the other would feed the coroner.
I’m problem land. Remember the glorious days past
With daisies and morning glories? It’s over! Gun blasts
Have let loose blood baths to mar that beauty too fast!

I’m a mule, would you bet millions I’m horse or donkey?
Am I part of The Plan or mistaken fall out of a monkey?
I’m both! Let no war marr my existence.
Let horse hate donkey, but here must both parents’ love have residence,
In this heart two hearts made.

( c) Nyonglema