anger

YOLO #beFree #YOLO

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“You only live once.”  = “You only got one shot”

How did we get to such a conundrum:

“You only live once” = “Make it brief and intense”

“You only live once” = “Binge it regardless how it ends”

“You only live once” = “Get some drug addiction friends”

“You only live once” = “Lose your morals, and intelligence”

 

Now youth roam in confusion thinking of freedom

In magazine-imposed gear or dreams of TV show stardom.

While questions go Brownian within my cranium:

If it were a vampire movie, and it was the last silver bullet,

“You only live once” = “Waste that mofo like you got no sense?”

If it were a cowboy standdown, and you were on the other gun’s holster

“You only live once” = “Do the hammer dance, for it all ends”?

If you were at a job interview to feed  abandoned mom and 3 starve siblings,

“You only live once” = “Tell them it’s the job or murderous intents”?

All in the new politically correct nonsense: You have freedom!

Freedom to jump over the ledge, to keep your family on the edge

Wondering if you are alive or dead, wishing you’ll be back to bed.

 

I remember a Maverick changed the life of one hardcore YOLOer

And he realised bingeing it out just makes you a sad follower.

YOLO, YOLO, YOLO, YOLO

YOLO, YOLO, YOLO, YOLO

 

I see vomit pools, drunk pools, blood pools, lost schools

More fools, mere lost tools for whoever the system picks as more cool.

 

YOLO, wanna be my tool?

 

(c) Nyonglema

anger

Across the bridge #Soweto #Sharpeville

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                                        RIP to the fallen but: Non sine causa mortis. -Nyonglema

Why didn’t the police throw flowers instead,
As our Master recommends when your cheek gets beat
And you need to turn the other side of your head
In a Stephen forgiveness prayer in the battle heat?

See the children crying the tears of the future
They wished they had, fighting for generations to come
To see freedom and more, to dream of more than manure
And dung, to aim to the sky, but just that you stay calm

And listen. Why didn’t they throw flowers instead
Of gas to rose-prick the eyes, and blows to nose-bleed
Innocence, fighting back with stones, staring scared
But not afraid to give, give, give and sow this seed

Which was to be sown not in blood blood bloodshed?
Why let those lethal tubes let lead lash out
At Ndlovu, Hector, more, while others ducked, the floor red,
Life floating around clothed flesh wide-eyed open mouths.

See….see the children crying the tears of the future
Dreamed, which the next generation finally received,
And smile the smile of 100 years, sitting on pure
Bliss on a porch, like watching your eldest getting free.

(c) Nyonglema

anger

Pied pipers #fakePastors

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Tu-du lalilila lilila tudu la
Walk with me you who are broken-hearted,
When your soul knows but cold and loss,
And joy is the “j” word from childhood departed;
Walk with me , walk for all goals thwarted.

Hold my hand as we roll down the hill.
Solutions, solace, sold to you this instant.
Slowly? No! Speed must come at this cost
And miracles sweeping, seeking all those who want
Will pour out from Heaven till all clouds are bland

Tu-du lalilila lilila tudu la
Follow me gullible bank notes and more
Oh no my dear, coins will puncture the basket
But bills mean successful con errr -version
So walk with me greedy whose hearts are sore
For blessings for cash we’re sharing galore.

(c) Nyonglema

joy

April fool #rainySeason #spring

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The seeds are losing their coats of colours varied
Within the arid earth, looking to the sky’s greyness,
And the thunder oliphanting the triumphant outburst
From bustling clouds dancing the ball of the newly married,

In the loud wind whooshing and rushing about the dry grass,
Littering with dust our squinted eyes as the first drops
Jump out to wash away the drear of the season of nix,
The season of bare land, searing heat on soil like dead brass

The seeds welcome the drops intensifying with each step
Of humans seeking shelter, or humans going helter skelter,
April’s joy filling them as they foresee their plants growing
As the death of barren land leaves for fresh green and pep.

(c) Nyonglema

love

SO SEI ES

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Jetzt seh ich nur die Finsternis,

Aber es gebe Freude jenseits der Liebe,

Andererseits sei alles peinlich alleine.

Kommet die Heilung nur wenn die andere da ist.

Ich habe meine Gefühle nich mehr im Griff;

Liebe die Gelegenheit ergriff

Meinen verletzten Herz

Noch in Schmerzen

Zu stecken; verdammt sei der Anfang!

Kaum kann ich mich noch verstecken,

Cupidos Pfeil hat mir schon ein Leid getan.

(c) Nyonglema

surprise

Exiled #neoAfrican

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Urbanised, I grew near concrete and car honks, not farms and cow horns
Nor the chirp of birds harmonising farm hoes tilling the soil.
My streams had little fish, just plastic and plastic and sticks from corns.
Urbanised, I learnt to read quite young, and in books was embroiled.

But back “home” where they wake at 5am to prepare for a long trip
To the farm, with loads on your back to and fro, you went off to the farm
And through sun burns you got trained to live through your hardship.
But you forget I have my own hardship which I don’t need to wear on my arm.

Yes, you laughed because I couldn’t handle your condition, I buckled
You chuckled and gave me names to signify I didn’t fit in
And that made me shut down from learning the richness of my culture,
Then seek strength in all that the urban life had trained me in.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Lost #Alzheimers

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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

fear

On Addiction #slaveToPleasure

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It pulls you as much as you pull it
It pulls you as much as you pull it.

You’re both master and slave to each other,
Satisfying your raster of cravings in destructive instants.
And in those instants when the cage feels sweeter,
You’re trapped further by some form of trance.

It pulls you as much as you pull it
It pulls you as much as you pull it.

You draw it towards you, feeling like an eagle
Patrolling your turf, oblivious to the nails sinking into
Your hands, as delusional you feel you’re in control.
You’re not. Each pull of yours meets Newton’s memento.

It pulls you as much as you pull it
But won’t push you even if you push it.

What ?! That’s the puzzle that rings the alarm:
You’re stuck in a draining flooded tub
And elusive are the objects which could grab your arm
And yank you out. Even when this beast was but a cub,

It pulled you much more than you pulled it
It’s pulling you much more than you can push it.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Confused #FarhadAkale

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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

sadness

Coffin #emptiness #memoryLoss #alzheimers

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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

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