In earnest beyond the Pings and Bongs of firearms
And call to live your life on the ground with raised arms
I see one dying people
Taking shots from lying people
And, they, dear friends lose again amidst the hearse’s palms.
(c) Nyonglema
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)
Lost #Alzheimers
The fish wiggle in the noise of tweeting birds blocked out by the polluted water
Trickling away in a little creek, under the bridge of my childhood quarter.
I’m laughing, but I know not why, then reach, catch one, reach further
Get a pair in a container, of which substance or colour I can’t recount here.
My friends on my side are mere shadows saying silence that made me chuckle
And we’d take these creatures to our homes to put in spare juice bottles
And feed them, watch them constrained to swim in a narrow aquarium
And I guess I was glad, but must have cried when it was time for requiem.
The trees I climbed with my siblings are still green, and the leaves rustled
As we went up to grab fruit with more shadows. And the wind bustled
By on its journey, bringing farm scents to my nose, the good and bad jostled
There, and I don’t remember which dominated the other in that tussle
But only that they were there, as we climbed and laughed away care
Talking of our stories, football on the tarmac with a whole throng of peers
And I know for a fact we went to the funeral of one of them at some point,
Or their parent…If you ask me which it was exactly, I don’t know it.
I recall as we got older and dared to talk to the girls, shivering like rain-beaten reeds,
And walking together to watch movies straight from Hollywood’s steeds
And the advent of cable, and a bunch of stories of which I can but catch seeds:
My first cigarette, a horror movie, some novel dad bought, buying school needs,
The day I fell into the bush picking up a ball and gashed my shin bleeding,
Or the machete accident, or the shell on the house wall, mum crying at me leaving,
My best friend leaving, projects of flying cars, some intricate software,
Recording my first song, a piano, some notes, a chord, some staves, a snare.
Each meeting with one of these seeds from the shadow that lived before now,
Where I waded in gathering souvenirs which got broken with each new now
Is like a stab to Caesar’s neck, leaving me sad inside, beaten, for they feel I disavow
Our history, the bond…despite my craving to remember each low and each wow,
To recall when we were where with what and why, and how we made it through,
And my cats I fed and petted, and came back to hear had turned to evening food
And the rats we tortured, and the birds captured…all these I wish I still knew
The beautiful and horrible memories lost from my childhood and adulthood.
(c) Nyonglema
Confused #FarhadAkale
RIP Farhad Ebanje Akale (March 15, 1985 – October 5, 2013)
Monopoly is quite a peculiar board.
It has always fascinated me from the days we
Heard the rain drops play on the roofs on Bamenda mornings,
But played on, played on…I won some, you won some,
Our siblings won some. The air filled with a peculiar
Smell of joy which only the carefree spirit of youth
Brings.
I remember the whole Griffin collection
We dove into and made believe and had fun, diving
In and out of the books until the holidays were
Over in 1993, and we separated never to see again.
What got me thinking about you is a monopoly board, Farhad.
Got me wondering in the cold being I’ve become where
The fountain of youth in the memories we both had
Hides. Life has surely thrown it’s curved balls at you too,
But I was sure within me you’ll be ok. You always were cheerful.
When I typed “Farhad Akale”, I was expecting to scour through
Myriad faces on Linkedin and Facebook to find my old friend.
I wasn’t looking for an obituary page!
I didn’t want to see Slink performing a tribute to you.
I didn’t want to drown in the words of a father washing the
Lifeless bundle of memories from cradle to mischief
To a bullet hole.
To the bullet hole, I say, why did you take my friend?
I’m here teary eyed to the kid I left behind,
And for the adult I never got to meet.
This is not even a poem, I’m not even on technique. My hands
Which are usually still in the face of the most horrid gore
Are trembling. I’m stuck in a loop of pain at the stranger
You’ve become but what part of me you go with is considerable.
Those were the days we smiled roses and laughed daffodils
On lilac plains, dancing in the fragrance of a dozen
Sunflowers.
You probably forgot childhood too, but I hope the Griffin is proud of your
Life, and that you find peace beyond the coffin within which is your shroud.
By the way tomorrow is your birthday, so to all the ones I missed, these words
And prayers are for you till we are on the other side re-imagining our worlds.
(c) Nyonglema
Coffin #emptiness #memoryLoss #alzheimers
Once I woke in a Bafoussam street which owned my brother’s flat,
Cold dusty straight path, with potholes, and the noise of city
Bustle, horning bikes, rolling cows going to grassy flats
To eat the meal of death-row. The cold sight I met from balcony
Of coffins, juxtaposed with coffins, round, weird, flat
Had me thinking about this final abode where nothing exists,
Lowered below eye level with nothing inside, prayed over
With nothing inside, but hopes hovering round, tears persist
As the memories ooze from the pulpit and eyes of lover,
Family friend, looking at nothing lying therein like insect in cyst,
Quietly non-existent, just an empty coffin in an empty coffin,
And I think about the empty coffin my mind feels like when I try
To reminisce of my teenage fade, where computer boffin
I attempted, and wormed through library books, with tears not cried
And failed at football, made my grades, but missed all often.
You see dad and mum were going through a tough one for long
And I guess this painting was not what I had ordered, so daily
I pushed the present to a part where this present would long
To find it, and rummage through intellectual pillage daily
But only find science and raps from Marshal Mathers songs.
A coffin. The voids of the pain were blinded in the blare
Of a hi-hat, bass drums and wordplay, while life zipped past
Me, leaving flowers and scars, bringing blessings in blitz glare
But which my eyes would see, inspect, understand then blast
Into a space where even long term memory feels like the recent past.
And here I look at wooden Me’s littering this lively street
Where hammers snare on nails and the bass of humming saws
Echo the memories I can’t get, the lost days I shall never meet
The friends to grace with awkward moments of hidden dropped jaws:
“Who are you again?” and a quizzical look from Sesame Street’s
Muppets. “Aaaah! Yeah, I remember now!”, I’d lie to their face
And sometimes I feel their psychic minds dissecting my tale,
And it digs another hole in the already empty space
Where the coffin’s emptiness fills every painful piece like ale
Or the rope that hastens the ebb of life’s painful pace.
Sometimes I wish I remembered the………………and
The ……………………………………….. but this
Coffin walking about doubts whether this instant
And the next would even be similar to ………………..
But………………………………………………
…all disappears and I’m left clawing away in a blank land.
(c) Nyonglema
Linux: Suicidal OS #ISupportJolla #linux #opensource
Dear Linux and Afficionados,
You first flirted with my ideas in a school club as nonsense from a bunch of computer geeks punching the keyboard on a black screen reminiscent of my dad’s 3-and-half-inch floppy-booted laptop, without a mouse, without a gooey GUI floating about my face as in my modern Samsung laptop. At the time, you were Linux the other one, outside in the cold looking at Bill’s dream float in the minds of young and old, and it made sense to me: you were way too complex, despite my light fling with DOS.
Later I got to know your personality, and you were Red Hat or Mandrake or Ubuntu and frankly, it still made little sense: was this 3.1, 95, 97, Me, XP, Vista, or what were these names intended for? Wikipedia told me they were actually flavours, and not versions, and within each vanilla or hibiscus or chocolate flavour came various versions based on what else was tucked in within you. Linux. Linux. Distros, flavours, versions, and stable and long term versions within the versions….Linux: have you ever heard of “Divide and Conquer”?
When you look at your distros you see innovation, possibilities, custom-made OSes but all I see is egoistic innovation, wasted possibilities, and custom-made confusion. I see precious metals lying about like in the war-torn mine belt of central Africa, where the locals see disjointed Cobalt, Gold, Uranium, Diamonds, but the wiser put them together to drive the price up.
What do I dream of for Linux, the OS I’m growing to love? Yes LOVE. For the potential I see wasted, for the fact that hours of non-profit love and work went to make it what it is. I’m rooting for Linux as the mainstream OS. Why? I think we’re being taken for a ride by all the others, and Windows 8 was the final nudge to make up my mind to start experimenting with Ubuntu, realising that I could get stuck in the modern EI crazed world where beauty = functionality even when you just want a bloody OS which goes fast so you finish your work in time, not stitching up my threads into animations which slow me down when I have my 20 web pages open, 3 Excel instances analysing data into one Powerpoint presentation being fed by another 2 Powerpoint presentation, and collaborating with a colleague via Skype.
What do I dream of for Linux? Find a way to make Linux compete with the rest by putting your energy behind the scenes and ensuring that less effort is spent in forking as is done so often, but spooning all OSes together, no matter how different they are, to different front ends, to customisable backends. But fully functional and less buggy!
Why do I rant? I nearly saw Jolla die. Ubuntu went over the top on the phone and it went nowhere. Mozilla’s phone isn’t really it. Tizen is not yet ready. However, for each open source baby about to leave the womb of the community to shine in the world, and stop being what I perceived way back as geek toys, which dies, it’s a bit of Linux that dies.
What do I want? That you Thunderclap #ISupportJolla if you are down with Linux. This is the baby of the two “pure” Linux phones ever made by that once grand company Nokia. The Sailfish OS is the closest “pure” Linux has come to being mainstream. Ok Ok ok. Android is Linux. But that’s not the real deal here. I think Sailfish is safe and open, but can’t share all their secrets yet, because they’ll get beaten by the big boys (cf Apple’s latest battery pack “TOH”). To me pure Linux is about productivity (which doesn’t mean Uglifiability). You can build something truly productive and cute, and this is what Linux does. Not something cute then productive. It’s about priority. Pure Linux ensures you can do what you want to do as quickly as possible; Android has the most atrocious multitasking, sadly replicated in the rest.
What do I want? That you Thunderclap #ISupportJolla for you Linux guys have been suicidal for too long, holding on to your horses while the other horses on your team struggle…it’s time to push more Linux distros to the fore, whether you love Wayland or not, whether you love Mer or not. Hell, they forked whatever to get here, and you’ve forked whatever to get to where you are, like Unity, Gnome 3 etc. Just support these guys. They could screw us and Android the whole Sailfish OS in the future, or even Windows it, or even (whoa!) iOS it. Well, but by the time they get there, there’ll be another Maemo in the works, because I know you guys fork everything. Let the Kernel dominate then spread everywhere to compete against but still for itself.
Crazy thoughts from me…#ISupportJolla, please do.
Sincerely Yours,
(c) Nyonglema
Aid in Africa #blexit
I heard them saying: Fish, fish, fish Free fish for the suffering African Your history's pain, and misery Your misery's plain, and surely Fish will make you whole. Your ancestors feeble Fell to imperial machinations. Your past heroes were but pale Imitations of ours... here some fish. Your misery's plain and surely, You can't do anything without me. Your children are feeble, And can't learn anything. Fish will make you whole: Here grab a bite. I got it where you can't go. Your misery's painfully surly. Cheer up, have a bite. Fish will make you whole. Fish will make you whole. Your history's all that matters. Here grab a bite. Forget potential. You don't have any. I'll save you. Your surly misery's painful But surely miserly gains would Change it all for you? Free fish for the suffering African Who can't do anything today, Because history took it away: Fish will make you whole. I said no. Grabbed a fishing pole. (c) nyonglema
Downhill #despair #darknessIt
It all goes downhill from here.
At home, I’m not the man I paint
On the wall of my dreams. I’m not he.
My kids see me, but I see a faint
Depiction of myself, riddled with fleas
I see a demon with horns in their saint
Advising, holding, downhill to hell.
It all goes downhill from here
When even at work your effect is faint
And your figures are wrong, targets wrong
And failure’s the only thing you acquaint
As the reports are filed and you’re wrong wrong.
Where did you go wrong in all that you meant
To achieve as you go downhill to hell?
It all goes downhill from where
Suicide lurks in the scripts on the page,
Taunts you with methods, means to fix this.
Gives you the manual to soothe and assuage,
In detailed depictions with diagrams and digits,
To stop decay and just leave it all without rage
Down down down down downhill to hell.
It all goes downhill from here.
Even the staff is broken, staring with rage
As you disgust in the reek of your failure.
The promises filled the meter, but didn’t meet the gauge
And your futile attempts to fix are lures
To aggravate the stench and meet Murphy’s adage:
“It will go downhill downhill to hell.”
What’s left? What’s left? What’s left?
Nothing. Nothing. Downhill downhill …to hell.
But it need not go downhill from here.
Your finger’s on the trigger of solace, or so you think.
There’s a Saviour in true panoramic review
Of the situation. He resets the stroboscope on your blinks
So you can see the brightness now out of view.
It’s never easy when the dishes seem to overfill the sink
But it always goes down down and away from hell.
For it only seem to go downhill from here
Because pain injects despair and shortsightedness within
And Hope’s disguised as sci-fi anime.
But if you look deeper, that veil will wear out very thin
And within God whispers each step of the way:
“It’ll be OK. Let me take you off the sand for a spin”
And your “Yes” will take you up up and away to well.
(c) Nyonglema
The End #writing201 #bye #aurevoir #aufwiedersehen
End it all with tears and gall or love’s joy,
Fleeting time’s demand is all I dreaded most!
Ten days pens blazed eyes mine like childhood toys,
Ten days then this: Ben says “Time” to all posts.
How lovely it started: words played with me;
Ideas from child years, from teen years and now
Poured through each page I read in cam’rad’rie
Blending into this punch that leaves me “Wow!”
Yes fun felt deep is one fore’er to keep
Poetry’s duty alive on running feet.
Tricks learnt and thoughts earned in laugh or in weep
Shall walk me till I’m past Earth’s defeat.
Friends, to part brings pain, but it’s been joy
We’ll end not with tears and all, but love’s joy.
(c) Nyonglema
Memories of Your Food #writing201 #day8 #RIPmum
The kitchen slab of long ago, with veggies and onions
And meat and knives and a utensil stack
And water and stock and “kanwa” and skills like a surgeon
And love and will to chop and then hack
Till pieces are ready to be put in the cauldron
Of oil of olive and salt and more
And make my meal, no a meal for me and the squadron
Of 2 bigger boys and 1 girlish bore,
Comes to me now in stabs and jabs to my sore bones
When I pause to think of your smile
For gone are you and the skill and love and scones
And we won’t see you for quite a while.
(c) Nyonglema
On his blindness by John Milton #writing201
On his blindness by John Milton
When I consider that my sight is bent, ere half my days in this dark world and wide, and that one talent which is death to hide lodg’d with me nearly useless…
I’ve been in specs since 14, but have been myopic from birth. Myopia being a strange condition in my environment (my gramma on the paternal side could thread a needle at 90), it was ignored until I couldn’t copy the questions on the chalkboard in school, and my grades blurred into the distance as my every experience.
I still remember my first glasses and the glee in me as I could see leaves. It was magic no other soul would comprehend: there they fluttered and waved at me, green and beautiful, each with its own character. Gone were the green blobs that stood at the end of branches. This poem from John Milton represents my greatest fear, and for having lived most of my life without seeing more than 2m on, and for having imagined doomsday as days without my eyes, the words ring deep within me. My consolation lies in the line where he states that it’s ok, one will find a way to serve God even in these conditions.
Here goes:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
-John Milton
Yes, I can also serve even without this marvelous talent we take for granted!
waghni 