And to crown it all we're all going to die! Or not. Despair is the flare from the barrel Next to the six-foot deep hole holding my stare: I can't climb out of CNN reporting in quarrel After quarrel that the air is filled with ire Not fire. They crawl up hands, to faces And dig into alveoli where life lies waiting To exhale through foetid mucus, a James Whale scare As the doctors bounce of beds defibrillating In vain or with success, but all in phases. No I chose hope. New phrases like social And distance breathe oxygen into more men Than the global promise of living without care! Oxymoron is the new hope for this ill omen! Greet-distance, Meet-noone, Work-home, travel-local. Hands-clean, touch-no face, calm-panic. But how not to panic in the face of a pandemic? The old, and vulnerable are main victim to evil's fair, But all carry the burden even in transparent tunic Taking some under for failing their civic duty. (c) nyonglema Stay safe. We can beat this. Wash hands, follow the hygiene and other instructions. By minimising the spread, we make more healthcare available to the more vulnerable. Don't panic, God's got us, and we got this.
Category Archives: love
Woman
Why did you forsake the Roman empire? The Egyptian Empire? The Ottoman Empire? The French Empire...every single Empire! You got comfortable and forgot your role: To point the sword away from human ire And build towers to the highest spire! The words become banal, and the world Becomes masculine debauchery now hurled On the walls of the castles, battles unfurl And you get the grass treatment when bold Warriors wield gashes into history's burl And curb progress: all speak "ber ber ber" You got comfortable, you who heroes check, You who feed us from embryo to adult wreck, And soothe, and build. You are she who make The human race, and decide which way it goes When you set your eyes upon your role. But heck. It gets boring pointing the head as the neck. When did you forget your strength to chase Hammering out resolve to each case As would men? Why down the staircase? Oh, while you aim out of your cross-hairs Remember that every civilization's fate Equals the height of value its women encase. (c) nyonglema
Candle in the wind
They are quite unpredictable like funeral tears.
The casket weighs down on a metallic stand in
The middle of the compound. The building
Is empty, the heart is empty, the palm fronds
Over this brownish soil staining my shoes
Have seen tears trickle in silence down faces.
The wind tries to snuff out the wick, but it resists.
You clung to the breath gushing out your throat,
Pulled by the cloaked reaper, but eventually it's
Gone. You've seen tears trickle down wrinkled
And smooth faces. You've consoled and cried,
With arms tight around a wounded shoulder.
Then, the breath soothed in melodic syllables.
You're clinging to the wind, the candle resists.
But the gusts gush too strong, the flame bends to
Mourn. The leaves rustle on the acacia tree,
The leaves rustle on the mango tree, The leaves
Pause to mourn. It wasn't the reaper calling.
A bearded Jew picks you up like a prom date,
His halo catching the pearls of your white dress.
The fiery chariot makes your half smile shine, as you
Look back at the tears to come, and say one last prayer.
But the gusts really gush too strong on the wick,
And the flames disappear to leave darkness.
You're gone.
We're torn.
We reach for the wick, but notice the flame still
Burns. The flame resists, our tears cannot.
Our fears cannot.
A fiery chariot
Took you away to a better place, but we are in
A bad place. We wanted to hear your voice,
We wanted to hold you, not some wax and wick in wind.
We wanted to own you, but life is for God's glory
And glory is unpredictable like a candle in the wind
(c) nyonglema
Atheism
The question remains: is there a carpenter?
Nails walked into the wood at right angles
And just at the positions and length to hold
Bars together. The bars themselves came off
The tree's intestines, in fitting chunks of
Lego magic. Baby skin smooth they came
Together and in went the nails. They came
12 of them, in 6 sets of twins, with a specific
Spontaneous destiny: to become part of the
Mindless chanceful event of a chair.
They came together in unplanned sequence
Such that it was done right and looked good.
But the angles aren't right, and the joints
Sing their pain when one tries to sit.
This thing looks like it might fall apart.
The splinter in my finger tells the chair
That it didn't polish itself right ... Then
I ask myself:
Could this have been a misstep of nature?
A random event?
Probability of 12 pieces of wood being right
Probability of them arranged just right
Probability of nails shaped and long just right
Probability of 12 nails going in just right
Probability of this holding together?
I've been told that a crappy chair
Is the proof of the absence of a carpenter,
But did the chair just spawn itself or
Or was it just a crappy street corner carpenter?
(c) nyonglema
Heal
Why would you smile at a stranger at the store?
This morning the cat wrecked her pristine couch and
Gouged with lion claws the eyes of her nascent smiles.
Her son got the cue and stood in the path of a passing flu
That knocked him out of his bed onto a sick one
Where temperatures rose and fell to the sound of
The neighbour complaining about the ball that wrecked a
Window. Yesterday, her boys launched a satellite
Off course that took the pieces of glass to the trash.
Why would you smile at the stranger at the store?
Because sometimes,
That all she's got,
It's all she's got.
(c) nyonglema
To Live
The drops of rain piano on the bars of my window
Where I can see the hide and seek game sun and rain
Play; the clouds laugh in silver rays like joyous waterfalls:
Birds love waterfalls. They polka the sky and tweet
Their cares away to the gentle wind under their wings.
Nature just opened its eyes to smile on the eternity
Of me, the sun, the rain, the clouds, the wind, the birds,
And the rest of restless creation soaking in the beautiful
Predicament of being alive for just this brief while
And yet relishing the divinity and love in every moment of it.
(c) nyonglema
God’s punishment #findLight
The furniture gallops towards my legs
And I reach out to grab anything to hold.
The pride is on me once I thud the ground.
I manage to rise again, reaching out
My hands as desperate eyes, feeling.
The stairs like hyenas are next,
Ready to finish me off, they jujitsu-
MMA-grip toss me to the ground, even harder.
I rise again, more in pain, seething with anger.
God's punishing me for not switching on the lights!?
I guess, I'll just switch on on my traverse back:
The stairs and the furniture like puppy
And lazy kitten, just sit still. My punishment's past.
(c) nyonglema
Happy Birthday mum by Meuna (7 yr old)
Happy birthday Mums, I wish you more years.
Mums, grow.
But I am scared of when you die.
I know it is part of life
(c) meuna
Learning to walk #mum
The sun danced into the room through colourful louvres,
While you smiled at me and held my trembling hand.
Fear showed me my face against the ground, not feet
Yet you pulled my hand to rise off the bed,
Towards the novelty of hope.
And you succeeded right there
To start a new colony of dreams:
Going new places with the newfound strength
Seemed the only reason the muscles moved in tandem.
My leg lunged forward, and you slowly matched that step
And I watched keenly to learn how this would feel later.
Then you took another step, and I nearly took you down
With my weight and St Peter's weight on my shoulders,
We stumbled.
Didn't fall.
Tried again.
My leg lunged forward, and you again matched that step.
The hum of the air conditioner bounced off the white walls,
And the news sad as usual on TV couldn't outdo your smile
To me as you watched me overcome doubt along the way.
Who needs to be ready in such circumstances? Just go.
So my leg lunged forward, and you slowly matched that step,
Smiling, clinging onto my hand trembling no more.
I wasn't going to let you go.
I would succeed.
I had done this before:
Back in Bamenda on baby Bata shoes,
You led the way, I followed.
This time I led the way, you followed.
We didn't fall.
We didn't miss your hospital bed.
We didn't cry.
We lunged our legs forward on an adventure to bring you back,
I led the way, you followed
To give your sinews renewed vigour, renewed life.
(c) nyonglema
42 #meaning
Where do you go from here?
The sign post set by dad and mom just warped
Into this monster pointing in every which direction.
Yesterday, it all seemed clear: backpack stuffed,
Maps marked and ready, dreams clear and steady
Like a tight line stunt. But now,
Where do you go from here?
You thought you had the director's chair covered
And all ought to fall in place like Lego art by LUGS.
But you miscalculated the meaning of the journey to God,
It's deeper than degrees, deeper than 18, deeper than love,
And can only go if you seek, understand, and let go
(c) nyonglema
waghni 