And to crown it all we're all going to die! Or not. Despair is the flare from the barrel Next to the six-foot deep hole holding my stare: I can't climb out of CNN reporting in quarrel After quarrel that the air is filled with ire Not fire. They crawl up hands, to faces And dig into alveoli where life lies waiting To exhale through foetid mucus, a James Whale scare As the doctors bounce of beds defibrillating In vain or with success, but all in phases. No I chose hope. New phrases like social And distance breathe oxygen into more men Than the global promise of living without care! Oxymoron is the new hope for this ill omen! Greet-distance, Meet-noone, Work-home, travel-local. Hands-clean, touch-no face, calm-panic. But how not to panic in the face of a pandemic? The old, and vulnerable are main victim to evil's fair, But all carry the burden even in transparent tunic Taking some under for failing their civic duty. (c) nyonglema Stay safe. We can beat this. Wash hands, follow the hygiene and other instructions. By minimising the spread, we make more healthcare available to the more vulnerable. Don't panic, God's got us, and we got this.
No End #stopwar #ambazonia
In a conflict, the more sensible person should call for a negotiation, whoever that person is. Guns only call more guns. Where the sunlight gives a dying kiss to the watery ripples Of orange despair, my mind wanders like a lost soul. Souls get trampled under dusty boots on the drying Bahama grass, bent over and trying to recoil when The foot leaves it; it has lots to say but its lips are sealed: Children played here under hopeful stars yesterday, While their crease-browed parents argued about the Next stop in their journey to nowhere. The neighbours Looked at their Cicam cloth on the floor in jealousy; Theirs was bare soil, and little food for their brood. Children sprayed bullets at soldiers yesterday While their wide eyed friends laid in red cells, Staring into the distance, avoiding the sight of Brother hacking brother. The macabre sacrifice of Cain, The macabre machination of Nagato Pain unleashing Upon the calm Harmattan smoke-laden wind. My mind wanders where hope and despair clash with rage. Everybody's right in the painting. All that's left, Are corpses, explosions, revenge, decapitations, and a Government that threatens extermination of vermin For foiling their plans of total control and greed Makes you only vermin to be eradicated, cost what may Come what may! Vermin is vermin even in a cradle. (c) nyonglema
Woman
Why did you forsake the Roman empire? The Egyptian Empire? The Ottoman Empire? The French Empire...every single Empire! You got comfortable and forgot your role: To point the sword away from human ire And build towers to the highest spire! The words become banal, and the world Becomes masculine debauchery now hurled On the walls of the castles, battles unfurl And you get the grass treatment when bold Warriors wield gashes into history's burl And curb progress: all speak "ber ber ber" You got comfortable, you who heroes check, You who feed us from embryo to adult wreck, And soothe, and build. You are she who make The human race, and decide which way it goes When you set your eyes upon your role. But heck. It gets boring pointing the head as the neck. When did you forget your strength to chase Hammering out resolve to each case As would men? Why down the staircase? Oh, while you aim out of your cross-hairs Remember that every civilization's fate Equals the height of value its women encase. (c) nyonglema
Can’t stop, won’t stop #ngarbuh #fongum #more
Who cares? The tears dry up into bitter red salt crystals On the petals fallen to this ball of water and rocks, muddied In lush vegetation trampled by boots, slippers, silent cymbals. They clang, but the ears float far away, like the soul halo In the backlit fumes of fresh foray against foe and friend, For revenge is mellow so that metal and more can billow. But who hears? The blue bird chirps its pain in arrows And hearts, and graphic designers design gore for that Yet the glass stays cold despite blood, char, and ash it shows. It stank to them who stole the pictures to horrid memory, But not to me. No phone can relay those chemicals to me Or the emotions that come with walking on war territory So I smile, and swipe left. Denial is the media's vial, Filled with self-loathing poison, the ministers love it too. More bullets, more fire, and less genocidal survival. (c) nyonglema
Enough #needVSwant
I've had enough of babies whining with beards, Like the umbilical hair under their noses were trunks To feel the ground for the hole in the chest thump. I need, I need, I need. That kneads folly into dough for a cake of hate Just because nobody had enough of cake...or of greed. I want to tell you the tale of how to tell apart The want of the brat to the needs of the heart. One word fellows, one word: ENOUGH. When the desire is infinitely insatiable, Then you're sure a want sits at the table. You can have enough love, Yet no number or size of glistening carbon Can adorn the beloved to satisfaction, And no white dress is beautiful enough. You can have enough hope, To go through the enemy's fray, but No number of weapons, nor manner Nor style is enough to guarantee victory your way. You can have enough food, But Twix, Snickers, Rafaelos, Mars, Fazer, Ragusa, Mambo, Rondo, Soya, can all be In infinite supply, eaten ad nauseam You can have enough water, But crates go down the toilet pipes And vodka drowns the neurons, and Amarula bottles are best when see-through. Indeed, as you can see it clearly appear, Needs enough, wants feed eternal greed: And since ingratitude blinds the boundaries of all, When the desire is infinitely insatiable, Then you're sure a "want" sits at the table. (c) nyonglema
The Joneses
The in-crowd is where the ornaments Dangle and glisten like snow-clad trees Only It's not snow-clad in 35°C humidity with dust Clinging on the squinting bike rider's eyes, As I arrive my destination and see the neighbours Boasting with their engines, and wheels. I'll get mine some day. Judas borrowed life for a day to make Something, Something's what I need now. Brand new car. I'll sell a soul for that. Mine? Yours? Lend me yours, or part of your chores. No not the chores, but what the bank sees. I'll pay you back just after this Louis V, This Choos by Jimmy, and after I have my GL 550. Yes I'll pay you...believe that! I'm just trying to stay ahead of the pack, Where I've always been at the back . (c) nyonglema
Impeach
The flies hover round, humming a dinner song.
The smell is marvelous, and taste builds a throng.
Rigor mortis holds their feast in place like pebbles
Laid round hand-decorated ceramic on tables:
Once, he moved around and guided with orders,
To sway his country good and keep its borders.
Then, HE decided. Not anymore, no, no more.
"Fact" is dead and "I heard " took over this shore.
And suddenly judging a presumptuous bribe
Is wiser than doing so for an actual bribe diatribe
(c) nyonglema
Joy
Speak again wind, blow through the virtual hair of my head.
I hear my children's voices in the yard,
I hear them gone on the stairs. It's hard,
But I can't touch them anymore than a jump to the ceiling.
They became beard-faced altered versions of me bustling
Through the challenges of life, baritone on the phone
Ordering me around, but basically never around.
I hear their children's voices in the yard,
I hear them going up the stairs. It's hard
To believe yesterday's a shadow I throw over dinner when
We meet to walk back to the plaid sheets I tugged over them:
Baby smiles, baby cries, dancing around to close baby eyes.
All those I have bottled inside, like chutney on a shelf.
(c) nyonglema
Candle in the wind
They are quite unpredictable like funeral tears.
The casket weighs down on a metallic stand in
The middle of the compound. The building
Is empty, the heart is empty, the palm fronds
Over this brownish soil staining my shoes
Have seen tears trickle in silence down faces.
The wind tries to snuff out the wick, but it resists.
You clung to the breath gushing out your throat,
Pulled by the cloaked reaper, but eventually it's
Gone. You've seen tears trickle down wrinkled
And smooth faces. You've consoled and cried,
With arms tight around a wounded shoulder.
Then, the breath soothed in melodic syllables.
You're clinging to the wind, the candle resists.
But the gusts gush too strong, the flame bends to
Mourn. The leaves rustle on the acacia tree,
The leaves rustle on the mango tree, The leaves
Pause to mourn. It wasn't the reaper calling.
A bearded Jew picks you up like a prom date,
His halo catching the pearls of your white dress.
The fiery chariot makes your half smile shine, as you
Look back at the tears to come, and say one last prayer.
But the gusts really gush too strong on the wick,
And the flames disappear to leave darkness.
You're gone.
We're torn.
We reach for the wick, but notice the flame still
Burns. The flame resists, our tears cannot.
Our fears cannot.
A fiery chariot
Took you away to a better place, but we are in
A bad place. We wanted to hear your voice,
We wanted to hold you, not some wax and wick in wind.
We wanted to own you, but life is for God's glory
And glory is unpredictable like a candle in the wind
(c) nyonglema
If only…
If only I had done more, been more, prayed more!
The sand and the mud are all mixed up
And the sun fish lie dead on the shore.
I wonder how they gasped for air, while the
Waves beat the sand, sending ripples of
Soothing sound through the air they couldn't breathe.
The plastics of the tourists are crab obstacle courses,
Once filled with juice, once desired
Now cast aside. Filth all around, and death follows.
If only I had done more, been more, prayed more!
The sand once a sheet of beige now is polka-dotted.
The dye finisher botched the mix, and the chaos
Created is just plain filth, and death follows.
I watch the Church tearing itself apart from inside
Like an infiltrated Iron-Man suit; from the inside.
(c) nyonglema
waghni 