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

Screen #escapade #despair

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I’m looking at you,
To find a better summer,
The letters just blink


(c) Nyonglema

sadness

My son’s tooth #RIPmum #loss #missTheWell

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I still remember when you were but members kicking in the air,
Reaching for my hair, my glasses, mouth bare, wide stare
Living life to the full without a fear, and very little care:
Your empty stomach, full diapers, or when dada or mum’s not there.


Yes, your gums gleamed for the future white to grow there,
And the first push through brought your mum-mum to crazy cheer,
And brought you and gramma and mum to some hospital chair,
To tend a fever…shame most of these times I was on foreign stairs.


The pictures brought me joy too, and I showed each peer,
Like “Check that out, the teeth are showing” to their blank stare
Of non-understanding, or about-to-jeer, or I-don’t care.
But that little trophy was mine and mine to carry everywhere!


Then they multiplied: more incisors premolars and each year
There was more to show in your mouth than in some trade fairs!
We were proud, but I bet as high as your head was your care
For the diamonds pushing through your gums as if fore’er.


But now I can feel the stab of the salty streak of each tear
That poured out as four years later the incisive pioneer
Lost its hold and you panicked and at that time we weren’t there
To guide you on this change that to you was a great scare.


But but how could you have…but but….Mummy….


How could I have known that things strong one day leave?
How could I have known that this time it wasn’t a pet peeve
And that that last heave for breath is the last you’d give?
How could I have known that so soon we would all have to grieve?


You were decisive and strong, standing through the toughest
And the roughest weather you brushed off your body’s surface,
And put on a warm face, smiled to heal the pain in my sore nest
Where the eggs of hope were being infested by hornets.


Mummy…


Like my little boy living life not thinking about the whites,
I loved deep but saying “I love you” was an Isaac sacrifice,
And by your bier, staring through the glass at shut made-up eyes,
I’m saying “I love you” as if to thaw your face and skin of ice.


(c) Nyonglema

sadness

In front of the door #addiction #lost #hope

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Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm


The butterflies don’t fly around anymore where I live
Nor do bees weave honey out of the sweet notes from trees.
Outside there’s quiet, so quiet even the colours took leave
And the dim light scoffs the darkness dancing around me


The fireflies died eons ago. Those notes of the piano
I long to hear turned to screeches within each cord
Of my soul: broken chords, broken hope more than you’d know
The cling clang of my chains and my beaten soul are in accord.


Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm


Yes the steps outside, those steps I hear as I fall
Into this abyss I love, those steps keep knocking and get denied
Entry to my cosy coroner of paradise which tends the walls
Within which I cage myself: this body I’ve hatefully knifed.


I clutch the bane and nurse my pain as my very own kin
And wish they could float in, wishing the owl’s hoot
Were not real, and they could pass through any- and everything
That the nightmares in my reality were entirely moot.


How shall I let them in to take away my pleasure
My treasure, my precious tender executioner?
The butterflies don’t fly around here in any measure
And the bees fled the pestilence in this corner.


(c) Nyonglema

joy, sadness

What would you do if it were you? #refugees #syria #RCA #somalia #eritrea

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There are guns shouting fear through your window shutters,

A bomb blast breaks your neighbour’s home and you’re running down the street.

The kids don’t get it. They don’t get it: why is there blood in the gutters?

Why are hands without bodies, heads with gaping mouths, missing severed feet?

The screaming gets louder, and it’s on your spouse’s and your shoulders

To save them from a threat, unarmed, untrained and the closest

You’d come to death were those Expendables movies in your hard disk folders.

The banks are shut, the bus system is shut, you never even had a Toyota starlet.

What would you do if it were you? If you’re playing metal gear solid in your own town?

Only this time, you have one life, no continue nor save, and to your untrained self are tagged

More untrained and even naive souls counting on you’re strength in this showdown.

What would you do if the only option was either death by exhaustion or having your head bagged?

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Pain #pain #humility #compassion

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A stab straight to the heart,
A flicker of hope gone away,
Forever present, a cancer on your skin,
In the bones or other frail tissues,
Coming to you when you least expect;
In every respect your closest companion.


In everyday it plays a part,
Like a tax you owe, you must pay!
Burden on your shoulder, a fragile kin,
Engendered from salient issues.
A kin you know you can’t neglect,
‘Cos though unpleasant, must be in the union.


Yes, though it is in your skin a wart,
A messenger teaching you to apprecia’e
The un-corrupted areas of skin,
To keep those bubbling insults in disuse.
Instead look at what good’s left, and delect
In the life-learning process; an important pinion.


You run away, you waste your millions,
No escape, you are the next to infect.
Water fills your failing sinews,
He’s stuck with you, no fleeing!
Your closest companion on everyday,
When you least expect he is taking part.


(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Doh Tita #veteran #warHero #stopWar #death

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Doh Tita in brown shoes, brown trousers, beige shirt,
The only gentleman shining integrity five miles around.
Doh Tita, everybody knew him, even in the town’s outskirts.

Memory of his war-wrought limping gait,
While he bragged of his world war prowess,
Telling of shrapnel, burnt flannel and some fallen mate.

And as he talked, a tear would have been born
On his eyelid; so much sadness plagued his heart!
But he energetically went on, disclosing the cold tales of that morn.

Like a forgotten folder, he sits and ruminates
About unrewarded sacrifice, the lethal hail all about,
At school with his friends, years of training a pellet deflates!

Wolves kill dogs, must man kill man?
Doh Tita would tell of the glassy looks of the stiff
And we’d listen without lassitude to the Shaman.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

The Mirage #beYourself #loveYourself

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“Hey, check out our timeline on any social outlet: Facebook or Twitter
Or other for that matter! We’re the quintessence of happiness gone wild
The butterfly brings envy in gusts of wind to the creatures lesser,
So ride our boat, fearful one, err into Nirvana; you’re so mild”


“Mine’s an open marriage were she and me do what we do together
And unlike heartbreaks shrouded in secrecy and lies, we share our weather:
That stranger, that partner, we swing on this boat as recommended by others
And loving the spice it brings to the complete couple we would rather.”


“Mine’s unfettered liberty in the absence of a bellowing baritone beard
As I raise my throng of 2 strong victory over every each of them
No arguments on choice of clothes, religion….hell I’m the one with the beard!
Men are so overrated, I’m tending the aftermath of dumb male dum dums.”


“Mine’s this elixir from ages old, bringing joy, relief from daily throes
In puffs and Os, in teams, alone, pain’s an old lady’s tale we’re not told.
Calm comes when the paper castle’s joints turn to paper prose
And I beam so bright with ma bro’s  thousand rays of sun-like gold.”


OK….


Thy words I’ve heard, and peered I have into the gears which drive thy thread
And ere I chide, my dear, art thou perchance alive, or art nigh dead?
That pain’s thy wish, and care amiss
I barely knead within my wits
To pair thine love with lusty peers: a nightingale in eagle’s bed.


Thy words I’ve heard, and peered I have into the gears which drive thy dread
And knaves in men those sores will rend within thy self the source of red
But tears within bring tears without,
And mend it will if will’st it thou
To each sore kid a fairy’s life through love not lust thou would have made.


Thy words I’ve heard, and peered I have into the gears which drive thy thoughts
To think that aught replace the here and now are thoughts of kindly tots
To hide thy face in highs insane
Than face the day and fight the bane
Sure will  bid the pain away, but hide it will to grow its knots


SO…


That high you live, is but that…a high you live, living on the bleeding edge,
Chasing Mavericks, chasing the wind, not seeking meaning in the confusion we live
But laying excuses why you wouldn’t put up with the “ordinary” boring ledge
Till you’re clutching breath lest it leave…lest this be the last instant time gives.


But worse! that high you preach to pull others to warm you in your loneliness
Where pain seeks company, and it’s enterprise is cities of high rises
Where the exit hides, and plays tag, and you’re not allowed to seek its ugliness
But live it, be sick with it, is like to brag about your brand new arthritis!


A world where care for peers has turned to care for self and money,
And where wisdom is Nicki’s hair fixing with Swift and fuming at Miley.
Ephemera ephemera, Rome’s back to give us ephemera
And the final blow shall be dealt brutally, then fall all works of Caesars.


So while “Be Yourself” bellows loud at a throng in uniform delusional
I tear up to see “Freedom” start wars, lose souls, shoot holes
Into hope, all in the name of Freedom! Freedom to be like what’s typical
Freedom to conform to the modern mould or be cast out whole.


I shall not fold.


(c) Nyonglema
 

sadness

Letter from Overseas #noNamenoBurial #migrants #sicily #Libya

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Dear mum, dad, brothers, sisters

I finally arrived where my wings would lead me:
Fluttering butterfly flying over the arid bones
Littering the Sahara and the water-less desert homes,
And the Unicorns died long ago in this part of Earth,
And the promise is great beyond this packed car so lonely.

I finally arrived over the wall of hydrogen and oxygen:
Cod zapping around the nets of growing security threats
Avoiding capture by sharks swimming in Libyan markets
Lonely in a packed raft dreaming of Sugar Candy mountain’s berths
And the promise is great beyond this journey scars of candy.

I finally arrived, oh you should see me now, I made it:
Bones lying comfortable in the land promised to us
As I waved goodbye to you watching the tailpipe of that bus,
Lying lonely in a crowd of happy silence, where water has seized our breaths,
For we made it, we made it beyond pain to peace in this earth so cozy.

Farewell till we meet again beyond the pain.

From the grave with no name.

sadness

Dying from my porch #stopBokoHaram #Maroua

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I’m drifting away, a ghost fleeing its wrecked home.
I’m drifting away, with ghosts fleeing their wrecked homes.

We saw the mother and daughter walk casually past our houses,
Veiled, usual, so we thought nothing of them.
We’d heard of how explosions rocked other cities without announcing,
But it’s human to err, and think it’ll only impact “them”

So as fate had it they lit up their ounces and the blast
Took us all unaware to Peter’s gate, as our bodies breathed their last.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Nature hates a vacuum #actNow #doSomething

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Say something I'm giving up on you. 
Words healed but turned into poison too. 
Anyway I'll hope you'll not go rogue. 
As universal wisdom loses its place, and madness
Fills the space, contemporary  and lifeless, 
Till all tongues are tied in fearful sadness. 

Write something I'm giving up on you. 
Thoughts healed but turned into poison too. 
Anyway I'll read you and not Vogue
As editorial muscle crushes creative clout,
And ink gets scrubbed off History's mouth; 
The victor's and the loser's versions are out.

Show something I'm giving up on you. 
Shows healed but turned into poison too. 
Anyway, I've known fairies become orcs
When Fulton gets replaced by Charlie's antics, 
And outrage is sought by setting distended ticks
On minds of unsuspecting kids, glued with sepsis.

Play something, I won't give up on you. 
I pray something can seed new hope from you. 

(c) nyonglema