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
Category Archives: love
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
My secret is that:
Nobody knows that I died a long time ago.
But she would have known,
Even from the slab at Melen.
She just slept.
She never liked hard surfaces,
Preferring the 6 cushion couch
Of red yellow and orange circles of my childhood.
I still remember the watery smells that danced the Burlesque
Of firefly magic from Lake Wum on my childhood days.
The chairs sat under a family of 20 with 1 mother.
Yes, same chairs followed us to Yaoundé, where
She'd start the TV shows with me and then slip away.
Then I like a bad dream would slowly touch her skin awake:
"Mum you should go to bed now".
The show was over.
She would rise then go to sleep.
In a 6-foot hole in Baligham.
(c) nyonglema
My little flower #love
Down by the shore of city life, I found my little flower:
White lily shining fragrance the size of the Eiffel tower.
Unexpected the feeling of finding beauty right here,
Down by the shore of the rush of life, on the pier.
Down I stooped and scooped the softly petals,
And a whiff of joy made my feeble heart unsettle
The petals so brave were not the frail of despair
But showed the strength of surviving hostile care.
The sepals seemed to have done their fair share,
Cradling the white and shunning life's scares.
Their green sang odes to my heart's singing strings,
Like the rebirth as deep winter announces spring
By the shore of city life, I held the peduncle
And tucked it into my tangled hair's crunkles.
"Journey with me through all of life's worst despair,
My little flower, through life, surviving hostile care"
(c) nyonglema
Myriam Batjoachim #motherofGod
The Angel offered to seize it all:
Your peaceful days gathering water
Your anonymity doing God’s ways,
Waiting for your spouse to take you
In order to save an ungrateful people.
You said yes!
The governor forced you on a census, with
Baby pressing your bladder,
With back ache, spots on your face
No room to calm Braxton Hicks
Just you Joe and the animals
And the grass the animals ate
And when it was time to push,
You said yes!
The prophet embarassed you with your newborn,
He promised you the grace you knew
He promised you lots of pain new
And you pictured the sword, your heart
And figured greatness breeds pain
And looked at Joe’s encouragement,
And said, well, yes!
And at Cana, where the harps hung on empty cups
You turned to your baby boy
All grown, all full of hope,
And bade him do them a favour.
Yes, you set it all up, for his
First miracle, and the Lord
Said yes!
And throughout his ministry, he would taunt you with denial
To teach love of neighbour beyond family
But you were the first disciple,
You rode his pain, you shared his joy
And I can picture the conversations of
Mother and son, advise shared, wisdom shared
And through rain, sun, hail, gale, miracle,
You said yes!
And when his coronation came close on a donkey and palms
You saw the blood that would end
The journey of love; you saw the manger
The temple, the sermons, the crowds,
The miracles, the thorns, the cross,
The blood that would end it all.
Yet, you said, yes!
And as John watched your tears reflect his blood, whence
You couldn’t parch his raging thirst
Nor re-nurse those childhood wounds
Nor hug the pain out of infant tears
Nor sing a lullaby to ease the sleep
Nor rub his back to heal the pain,
Your tears said, yes!
And as they took the nails out his hands, as he lay on you,
And love slithered to constrict your chest
And the tears bubbled out to heal his death
You sought to comprehend it all
And prayed the roles were reversed,
And God said, you’ve done well my child
For the salvation of many, and again,
You said yes!
(c) nyonglema
A tall mountain top #forMum
Dear Readers,
I had to share this little jewel from my 8-year-old son; something special he wrote for his precious mum. It’s so unexpected that he came up with something so special…and she loved it.
So here goes: A tall mountain top, by Balla.
Enjoy,
Kind regards,
nyonglema
__________
A tall mountain top
As tall as you can see
With lovely flowers
Grass and trees
I love to
climb up there
It’s so tall that it nearly
touches the
moon.
(c) balla
Let Geal Broblems Trevail #inAfrica
The flies dart around his arid mouth, whose sides point to the outline of his ribs attacking his parchment skin. The ground looks exactly like him, though older
A lot older. His mum looks no different; well a little more distraught.
She seeks solace in an empty box, where cobwebs acquaint dusty air and despair.
Then there was the one who had everything he needed, but couldn’t get to any meeting in time. His car fought time in impossible battles where potholes had cheat-codes to rupture tyres, kill the shocks, and shock the monthly balance sheet
Sheets of mud made 10km look like 100km, and the traffic madness made everyday on Earth like an eternal repayment of evil.
Then there was the one who wanted more. He took the fruits of corporate toil to build an empire for him and his child, but Everest seems an easier prospect for each step of the investment process, for each step of the electoral process, for each step of the hoping process.
Processing files gets trickier each person you meet, and civil un-clarity is the clearest form of corruption to be your defeat.
But the international community knows that the most urgent way to solve years of poverty, pain, nepotism, despotism, murders, mass graves, mass rapes, massacres, genocide, homicide, fratricide, betrayal, civil disorder, civil unrest, political abuse, constitutional abuse, religious abuse, educational decline, moral decay, brain drain, societal decay in Africa is with one solution: the LGBT liberation.
The solution to the proliferation of AIDS is to urgently encourage the more dangerous copulation?
The solution to poor healthcare is to urgently create new health care issues?
The solution to hunger is to feed a pack of NGO-related lawyers?
The solution to political injustice is to replace the meaning of the rainbow in your constitution?
The solution to inefficient functionary service is to add new clauses barely understood?
The solution to failing education is to reform only to include the LGBTQ-etc?
The solution to repopulating after genocides or disasters or diseases is barren relationships?
Well…
The fall of every empire starts with political correctness and warped priorities; only…Africa is not even out of the ER yet.
Where should we focus more the aid we get, and our resources: on something that divides the civil society and is the least of our civil issues; or on educating our children out of the inferiority complex and dependency mentality?
I pick the latter.
(c) nyonglema
Searching for Eggs #HappyEaster
Happy Easter to all of you; Seek the Light as it pours into your hearts
Where can those chocolate eggs be?
Eggs beaten, made into omelettes.
They said you can’t make one without breaking eggs.
So God took a pan and broke a few…they sounded like bones:
The egg white as water, the yolk as heavy as blood.
Mine was, anyway, the promise of Adam.
I saw a curtain rip the Earth apart,
As a cross took God on a roller coaster ride
To a destination we all must go…but all fear to go:
Like wanting to go in a public toilet…but…
The yoke was heavy on humanity, and God broke it
He made us new, and I saw Mandela’s advice:
It went something like:
Aim not for your fears, but for your hopes.
So God bled tears on stone, and went for one hope:
That your soul (well our souls) would find light
Even in the deepest darkness!
He accepted the treacherous lips of death
And the deprecating thorns and cape that drew his blood.
He did it for you, that you may have new life with him
On the day He gave new life to Himself. Amazing right?
God died our days away with His pain, love, and light.
Those eggs look pretty that way….if any of this was about eggs anyway.
(c) nyonglema
waghni 