Category Archives: sadness

Suffering Agony, suffering, hurt, anguish
Sadness Depression, despair, hopelessness, gloom, glumness, sadness, unhappiness, grief, sorrow, woe, misery, melancholy
Disappointment (Dismay, disappointment, displeasure)

Shame (Guilt, shame, regret, remorse)

Neglect (Alienation, isolation, neglect, loneliness, rejection, homesickness, defeat, dejection, insecurity, embarrassment, humiliation, insult)

Sympathy (Pity, sympathy)

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.

sadness

D.N.A. #blacklivesmatter

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I’m mostly skin-colour blind, but in this post I want to reflect on the struggles within the black communities.

You know that moment you have to protect your kids from some particularly mean neighbour? Well you won’t be protecting them if you did the same to them would you? The question to most blacks is: “How much do black lives matter to you?” More than your money? More than your tummy? More than playing life with that fine body? More than greed?

The title is inspired from Don Cheadle’s line : “Another Dead Niggers Association”, while talking to Kendrick on Kendrick Lamar’s hit song D.N.A. This song looks at the heritage of the black communities and the conclusion is quite poignant: “Sex, Money, Murder – Our DNA”. You can read more about it on Genius.com.
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Einstein is asleep in a Bepanda rubbish heap.
Newton is learning how to swim in Soweto poop.
Shakespeare is slumped in a car with extra lead
Losing the grams he suddenly gained on a Vegas road,
Then Dumas does same: different street, same oozing scenery.

D.N.A.

Is it a case of which or is it that each black life actually matters?
The geniuses seem to be electrons in the society’s first chapter,
Then the atom goes positive in self-wrought treachery

D.N.A.

You took Dube for his car, Njawe for his mouth, Lumumba for his mind, Pac
For his revolution, X for his convictions, Luther for his wisdom, Sankara,
For his vision, And their names scream from an unending roster in front of Peter.

Dead Negus Association

Then our mothers turn preemptive and kill
The next Mozart for fear of hunger, dump
The next Leke for fear of parental anger.

Where are the tears in these instants where the now seems better for all?
How to un-wrench my heart when the news comes out the radio speaker,
And the souls fly around one last time before going unaccomplished back home?

The miracle of the genetic mutation that brings genius to uplift our communities mostly gets lost earlier than on the blueprint:
Each gone by a gun or its mum.

(c) Nyonglema

People will treat you the way you treat yourselves. May blacks love their neighbour more so that hating you doesn’t look anymore like something you taught everybody. Love black lives

sadness

Jammed #douala #lagos

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No strawberry, no mango, no raspberry or sour fruit,
Just me, angry honks buzzing overhead, while smoke stabs the planet.
A seed is sown, a green one that whispers jealousy, painted
With the blood of all those cars on another way, going ahead, going away
While angry honks buzz overhead, and I’m still, stabbing the planet.

It’s jam, there’s a little too much of it in the glass jar,
Staring at me wicked-eyed, like : stay there, let the ants
Eat your sticks on the clutch, while you wish to shift the stick.

The sun gets bored, the wheels move an inch, no just a pinch
Of the jam. It dips it in vinegar and pours on my tongue, water
Water, cars all around, but no water in site, and no shops in sight
And no bottle inside my hell, where the air conditioning drones
And the air mocks my impatient fingers drumming on the wheel, to the

Rhythm: heartbeat, temple vein, anger, heartbeat, temple vein, bigger
Stick shift, clutch, move, heartbeat temple vein, honk, frown, bigger
Thinking about jams, how delicious they are with bread, strawberry, other
But how this jam is going to call the raven on me stabbing the planet,
Stuck in the evil stare of the glass jar, wishing to shift,
That’s a real bother.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

I wish to care….#nobodyCares

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There’s the impatient man stomping the time away,
And the kid pushing the buttons that raise the hair
And temperature, and voice of his parents, running around.
The screen flicks through the album it was given,
And the speakers blare out exactly as they are told to.

She’s on the phone, clutching it like a deep sea dive
Scuba. She listens, answers between gasps and
Muffled tears pushing out of the cocoon heavy on
Her heart
It’s broken.

She nods while a hand wipes her cheek.
Her wet knuckles listen, and her cracked lips answer.
Even the bags hanging like weights around her crimson wells
Cannot contain the pain, it seems.

I’m holding my pen, and I look on.
I dare not ask lest my heart break.
I dare not ask lest my ask breaks in.
We all from our eyes’ corners watch her dissolve away
And start asking questions:

“Did she just lose somebody dear to Death?”
“Did she just love somebody dear and he left?”
“Did she just lose her job, and tells somebody dear?”

Only, nobody touches her shoulder and asks her;
We ask ourselves.
Nobody spares her knuckles the teary chore,
Nobody cares.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Just one day #worldRefugeeDay

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You know that one thing that rents your mind space like a blink,
The tornado of meaning as predicted by feelings and yards of ink
Was a mere heave, and the elements paused to listen to nature breathe
And you’re back to the cocoon whence Nemo got word from the white rabbit.

You’re back to the cocoon whence Nemo got word from the white rabbit,
Oblivious of the maggot feast of society and the prisons of habit
Where hopes meet dreams, and share Hennessey, the other Salmiakki
Some Sake and Odontol in coffins of fun, trust, love…apparently

Some sake and odontol in coffins of fun do, but trust and love apparently
Don’t suit that “Day” set out to deal with what we deal with currently,
And won’t fix anything. But you know most things are so important to humanity
That we set one day out for them, so we don’t forget how important.

That we set one day out for it, so we don’t forget how important
Maimed families from months of murder seeking new grounds to haunt,
Survivors who have everything they’ve lost stored in camps on the outskirts
Of life’s comfort, hidden from the sun’s rays, all crimped together are.

Off life’s comfort hidden from the sun’s rays, they stay all crimped together
Looking to the world which flung death at them, ruffled death’s feathers
Till he came hacking at innocent children watching death unfold
In gory Nandinis of blood, concrete, dust, metal and screams

In gory Nandinis of blood, concrete, dust, metal and screams,
With the distant gaze of art show rooms, I see shattered dreams
And dedicate this one day to something so important to these maimed families,
And dedicate the other 364 to making weapons and wars to maim families.

(c) Nyonglema

This is to refugees, women, youths, parents…all those things which seem important to humanity that we celebrate them once a year, and destroy them the rest of the year.

sadness

Wrong place #paris #kolofata

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Nine burnt souls float over roasted mayhem where souls are tugging their way out of resilient bodies.

All they remember is a bright light; the deafening din rushed towards their maimed bodies like Sir Hewett, and you know what they say about not hearing the bang…

They will no longer bathe in the bitter burnt flesh fragrance heavy in the smoke blundering through the debris.

They will not agonise with the grunts and moans coming from where wood and flesh, metal and flesh, and earth and flesh dance the Black Swan with darker shades of hell and oozing red.

But, they will nevermore hum a lullaby to the drowsy eyes of toddler dreams, nor bless the lips of a lover with a touch of their lips.

Their seat shall slice onions into the hearts of those sharing meals at the dinner table, and the past tense will follow every mention of the scathing memories of how happy they made this one or that one.

The media will mention their names for all to hear….or maybe not. This didn’t happen in Paris; who cares if 2 prepubescent girls blow up a refugee camp in Kolofata?

(c) Nyonglema
 

sadness

Dusting the pictures #immigrant #Libya

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I’m looking at my wall decorated with frames of different sizes, colours,
Most of eyes smiling back at me from years I have long forgotten.
The dust jealous sits upon them scattering the rays of sun that slowly pours
Into the living room to warm the day at noon and bathe my cotton.

This can’t be: my cloth takes them down one by one to clean.
I remember this day in the village amongst tall corn crops and loud silence
When we tilled the soil and planted corn, groundnuts , beans
And mum snapped away at you, me in the hoes and farm tools’ violence.

I remember this day in the village amongst tall corn crops and loud silence
We held hands and shared smiles and selfies, laughs and hugs. Then
Was a hell of a time. No TVs nearby to fill our joyous days with violence
Just you, me, holding hands while the tweets swung the leaves above them.

Look how fragile the kids look into your face staring at me,
The camera captured every curve of your face like sharp knives
Pointed at the salt trickling now down my cheeks. I just wish I could be
Wiping the dust off this with you, while we walk through our lives.

This one is a clipping from the news on that day..I won’t forget that day,
Black and white text to tell me that I’ll never see your face again.
The sea shall keep you safe, with our kids…why did you run away?
I wipe off the dust near “…boat capsizes over the Mediterranean… ”

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

We only wear Boss, Hugo that is #racism #colour

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Adapted from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Negro

How to judge a man? I got some inspiration below….hint smell is important:

The mention that mentally the leather fragrance wearer is inferior to the wood fragrance wearer, may be taken as generally true of that whole race: “the leather fragrance wearing children were sharp, intelligent and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to indolence. We must necessarily suppose that the development of the leather fragrance wearer and woody ones proceeds on different lines. While with the latter the volume of the brain grows with the expansion of the brainpan, in the former the growth of the brain is on the contrary arrested by the premature closing of the cranial sutures and lateral pressure of the frontal bone.This explanation is reasonable and even probable as a contributing cause; but evidence is lacking on the subject and the arrest or even deterioration in mental development is no doubt very largely due to the fact that after puberty sexual matters take the first place in the leather fragrance wearer’s life and thoughts. At the same time his environment has not been such as would tend to produce in him the restless energy which has led to the progress of the wood fragrance wearer; and the easy conditions of tropical life and the fertility of the soil have reduced the struggle for existence to a minimum. But though the mental inferiority of the leather fragrance wearing to the wood fragrance wearing or floral fragrance wearing races is a fact, it has often been exaggerated; the leather fragrance wearer is largely the creature of his environment, and it is not fair to judge of his mental capacity by tests taken directly from the environment of the wood fragrance wearer, as for instance tests in mental arithmetic; skill in reckoning is necessary to the wood fragrance wearing race, and it has cultivated this faculty; but it is not necessary to the leather fragrance wearers.

And I believe this because if you smell different, you’re definitely inferior. I pick the woodiness of Hugo Boss. YOU ARE INFERIOR!

Oh, and also, I’m going to be judging you because your skin doesn’t reflect the same light wavelengths as mine…YOU ARE INFERIOR!

Then I’ll make up some excuses about your anatomy based on your fragrance and light waves…but bottom line is you’re INFERIOR! Deal with it.

(c) Nyonglema

PS: Colour ain’t a thing! Black, white, yellow, brown, green…doesn’t matter. I’m brown, you’re whatever you are…but we’re all humans trying to make sense of this big ball we’re on and what lies beyond. Let’s walk together. There are more reasons to think we’re similar, than to start limiting ourselves with colours, scents, and lame measurements.

 

sadness

The ivory factory #poaching @ConservationOrg

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Ivory chase

Horns quickly bring wealth
Where putrid pellets of sand
Lie with drought and death.

Ivory staged

Desert death row meal
Now watched through a visor
Going for the kill.

Ivory made

Smoke and unseen flash
Rustle leaves and burst through skin:
Beast and money crash

Ivory cased

Litter carcasses,
Vultures humming eulogies
While horns live with man

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Einsamkeit #loneliness

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It’s funny how “einsamkeit” (German for loneliness)  sounds like “ensemble” (French for together), although both are so opposite one to the other…This is my painting of the most murderous mood a human can ever die into:

 

 

Frozen synapses:

Dosing awake, collapses

Into nothingness.

(c) Nyonglema