Real isn't reeled anymore out the tube.
It was rolled up before as snippets of the world, but with CGI
Nothing is as it was.
What should I believe? What should you believe?
Man saw the void and with words and steel
Said let there be light, and so it was, and night was day
And day was day, there was neither evening nor day.
Then they flooded pieces of land, and dried up seas
And tweaked the plants, and fiddled with DNA,
Spawning animals new and weird. Still no day.
And then they set about to make man
And woman
According to the images of the Vogue 2008 summer edition.
They looked on and saw it was good.
And rushed to teach our children:
1 + 1 depends on what your 1 means
A cell depends on what you want it to mean
An electron is whatever of those particles you choose
And Kirchoff's nodal law is even applicable to voltage
And your nationality depends on your heart's choice
And a mountain is an upside-down valley
And there still wasn't any day.
Men became women, women became men, and monkeys
Said they'd rather be called humanoid, or else!
The bonobos said they were descendants of wolves
While those who stayed off the green screen tried to say:
"If you jump of a 10-storey building, you will die".
But who is to believe them?
The green screen made Thanos!
(c) nyonglema
While there's a war on truth, now they add a threat to competition?
The solution to a special woman dominating sport is to suppress her?
It's unfair what they are doing to Caster Semenya, a woman,
meanwhile transgender women are allowed to participate with
"advantaged" bone and muscle structure from their DNA, even with
lower testosterone. Men remain on par with men even after sex change,
which puts them at an advantage over women.
Starting over #hope
As I stared out the wooden window wishing
I wasn't sitting here, but thinking the words
To paint on this page, I create brand new worlds
That the teachers will totally dig relishing.
But you know sometimes you notice that one line
Is out of place, then the paragraph, then the whole
As the sweat beads decorate my forehead folds
I know I'll draw a line, and toss one into the bowl.
Despair decorates mistakes beautifully, but
I know muses loiter in strange places, like deep
Sea fish hanging their lanterns in a weird jut.
I reach in, and grab one before off it leaps.
(c) nyonglema
CFA #freeDOOM
“Si ton père est alcoolique et bois de la bière pendant que vos voisins gèrent vos finances, il boira du Hennessy dès qu’ils lui laisseront le contrôle : l’impact sur la ration journalière sera nul.”
—
He was screaming at my bent head, louder and louder,
And I tried to hide my face from his words: “Make no excuses!”
I hadn’t realized my explanation of why I’d chosen Bowser
Over doing the dishes would get such a lame label. “Excuse you!”
I thought to myself, as he poured words out to change
My mind, but it had wandered off…
I remembered when the excuse for the pain that paved every street of my city was that the colonial masters wished it so. I remembered the same streets turned red so that this pilfering could end, that we could decide by ourselves. I remembered independence.
I remembered when the excuse for the pain that paved every street of my country was that the white man had taken our brothers away in slavery. Poor William Ellison, the prejudice done to him by the white man must be the reason why APGAR scores are lower around me than they are in his state. I remembered abolishment…
but
Only for the slavery to the white man’s land, for we kept up the lucrative business of selling our kind to the Arab market, where no abolishment was in sight. Yes, I remember partial abolishment.
I remembered colonial currencies. This must have been the cause of the AFCON competition being withdrawn from Cameroon, or the civil unrest in Sudan, and Algeria, Cameroon. This must be why medical doctors get jobs in non-existent hospitals, or schools look different on paper than in reality (especially when buildings don’t exist). This must be the reason for social decay, the bane of investors, the pervasiveness of corruption and officials stea…mean embezzling. I remembered the CFA.
That evil currency which prevents roads from being built, prevents hospitals from being built, and extorts pregnant mothers waiting to deliver in urgency. It’s the CFA that destroyed the educational fabric, let problems fester into mini-wars, killed all moral and ethics in business, and stabbed the future à-la Julius Caesar.
Now he was screaming even louder and louder
But I just stood there, head bent, seeming to hear it all,
But my thoughts meandered off further and further,
Remembering it all, then dreading our persistent fall.
(c) nyonglema
Choices
Where do they find their solace when time takes toll?
Choices that is. You know, when a fur coat seems better than a wind-breaking
piece of plastic in a shop where the browned decay of the sales lady’s teeth
hint at the bad breadth of its shoulders, and the colours seem off, but you’re
worried about the environment, so you lean towards it and away from dead animals.
Where do they find their stretch when time takes toll?
At one point you’ve got many, and at another the page is blank. Even the word
to start a poem hides behind the distractions of the day, and your choice to watch
Infinity Wars till 2am, and be up to your employer’s hobby, your livelihood, by
4am, which meant that your brain factory remained littered with yesterday.
I’ve noticed how choices impact choices, no troll!
It’s like the Mahjong possibility counter, and the kanji sign you just clicked
to reduce it, or when you go for a piece further off to the left, and the counter
goes up the sides of your cheeks, like to say you did the right thing by chance
or by calculated meticulousness.
My daughter stares me in the eyes as I get daily old:
I answer her that every action from that first cry she made hanging upside
down with amniotic coat has determined where she stands now, and every
action she freely wills will determine the amount of freedom she can exercise
as time takes its course and my hairline reduces my freedom of hair styling.
My son stares at my lies, head cocked like “It’s getting old!”:
I tell him freedom comes from sacrificing freedom, like Isaac on an altar, or
Joseph in a well, or me writing this here, or Jesus on a cross, or hitting a campaign
or running trail, or studying for a test, or digging up fossils, or just helping a
neighbour: the more of your freedom you forfeit for the right reasons, the more
you’re ready for the fullness of more freedom to forfeit.
(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
Kanye was right…a little #Cameroon
"Who wants change?"
I stare at the last instants of my son
I bare my soul to the sun: scathe me! bathe me
In scars that will heal! The Saian
Promised that pain brings new shoots from the ground
But who shoots flowers from a gun?
But I see flowers rising from bullet-made mounds.
I stare at the last instants of my son
And bear my soul scathing under the sun. Sounds
Are muffled. Hope sang birds' songs
Before on the trees above my lawn. I don't know
That bird, but I sure know the song.
It was Schroedinger's cat predicting my future.
But who shoots flowers from a gun?
Nobody! Nobody believes anything else will come
Nobody bares their soul to the sun
That song is either dead or alive, but nobody's looking.
We all want to see that cat run,
We all want to hear that song, the bird's, you know
I stare at the last instants of my son,
For no finger will be lifted higher than abandon
No hand shall be lent, only backs bent in allegiance.
(c) nyonglema
Doors #startingAllOver
All I see is doors,
You're looking at them picking the exit,
But each exit is more
Each exit is an entrance to new merit.
When I look at doors
I say a prayer, grab a hat, and in high spirit
Do a David Norris
For each exit entrances you with merit:
There's not a moor
But adventure like a brave Hobbit
Brings you victory... just in new habit.
(c) nyonglema
Rubber #hurtsToo #cameroon
Where does Hope go to die?
Like the cat licking its wounds, wandering shiny eyed
In the dark damp dirt on the garden floor, wide
Fields it once climbed, now a pathway to a final purr,
Finding its way past life number nine?
Like the dog going to the vet’s as one before its master
Had shed a tear to heal it, today has a different plaster,
The colour of the objective seems a tad more obscure,
As they talk of “down”, “put”, “goodbye”?
Like a human standing at future’s door, fighting for entry
As teargas and bullets rush through clothes, skin, rendering
Panic in HD for those viewing the scene, sending the cure
They sought into hidden spaces where Fear and Hope battle?
Today the bullets picked the winner, and there was no tomorrow.
Hope dies when forces of order force order deep into a burrow.
(c) nyonglema
It burns not…#cameroon
They said.
Boko Haram just killed 17 Cameroonians in the Far North
Boko Haram's attack just foiled in the North
Two innocent people kidnapped in the Adamawa
Successful repulsion of incursion in the East
Ghost towns dominate in the North West
Blood bath on both sides in the South West
Ransoms requested in the West
And since Littoral, Centre and South are not in the pot
We can conclude that all is ok; the fire is not that hot.
(c) nyonglema
Vivre en semble #pretendUnity
Le moustique chante dans ces oreilles pourtant pas endormies,
Qui guettent les pas des ravisseurs qui tour à tour font
La garde. Le silence est tel qu'on peut entendre les fourmis
"…ma reconnaissance au peuple camerounais de m’avoir renouvelé sa confiance…"
Erigés sont les poils des bras à découvert dans ce froid macabre,
La peur a laissé place aux sanglots qui se sont effacés par l'indifférence
Face à ces murs en terre battue … ah ce mot "battu" "battre", "abattre"
"… en prenant des mesures nécessaires pour préserver l’ordre public…"
Battues et coupées du monde, les larmes salées semblent laver le tartre
Comme un plâtre qui se brise laissant la fracture à découvert. Ils saignent.
« … Porte atteinte à notre Constitution… » « … d’être mieux
Associées à la gestion de leurs affaires … » Les lueurs d’espoirs s’éteignent
Avec l’arrivée du soleil. L’odeur d’Hadès parfume la rosée sur les jeunes fusils
« … nous avons maintenu notre cap vers l’émergence. » Il n’est pas 2035.
On se gratte la peau, on nettoie les cils. On boit de l’eau infestée de typhii.
Avec l’arrivée du soleil, l’odeur d’Hadès parfume la rosée sur leur règne
« … continuer dans la paix l’œuvre de construction » La guerre ajuste son masque
Ils se grattent la peau, et ils boivent du Lestac, dehors sous des corps la terre saigne.
(c) nyonglema
waghni 