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
A Homo negus sits in a sardine can,
With many more like him, squashed together,
All in fetters, with 10kg dissuasion strapped
To them. He’s bound on a journey he hardly can
Comprehend, nor knows he where this pain goes
Despite avoiding capture before, while watching departure of many a brother:
He watched them go and never return to their homely coves.
A Homo negus sits in a sardine can,
Smothered by the stench of piss and soulful dirges,
Singing of shark food, once valiant men, women, sons, daughters.
These actually died, but all are bound to death in some living land
Where they’re less than dogs, they’re told, and everything goes.
Survivors of the murderous voyage are tools to quell carnal urges.
They’re no longer shackled in twos, but living in groups on life’s borders:
Whipped, weeping, weak, but forced to do exactly as they’re told.
A Homo negus gets pulled out of the sardine can,
Shackled in twos, they shuffle towards the waiting room
(A claustrophobe’s hell) each pressed against the other’s 3-month filth.
Through the narrow door the red sea screams with the blood of many a human
Who challenged this madness or got sick in these conditions.
He waits for the order to board the floating tomb.
But, he doesn’t know that today this trade will be killed;
That he shall go back home to heal, and heal a nation.
(c) Nyonglema
Feeeeeeeen! Feeeeeeeeen! The nifty nuisance
Floats about my ears whispering loudly
As if to ask for permission to sink and steal
My silently speeding oxygen carriers from my veins.
It’s 32°C by my Jolla while the crickets chirp their love away
And some toads splash about their puddle trying to sing Vandross songs
(More like murdering them, but their ladies love it that way).
The still air hangs about my nose with scents from the nearby bush
While the bats are setting their gear for their nightly hunts.
I’m sitting here trying to write, but feeeeeeeeen
Those haughtily naughty fellows play their tune
And I roughly slap away to avert doom:
Who can imagine that these seemingly innocent notes
Have had malaria kill so many innocent souls?
(c) Nyonglema
Once I held a gun in the bush.
That Ak47 was nearly my size but I lifted it.
I was fierce and fearless to my foes,
Taking their lives before they could reach for mine.
Yes, once I killed in the bush;
The men who protected their villages,
The women who protected their children,
The children who would avenge their orphan state.
At that time I was a hero in the army
So decorated by war wounds and scars
That pain became the objective of my existence
And transmitting it my only medicine.
Now I’m 16 years old and peace has killed the need for guns.
My grades and skill set mean nothing.
All left is the emptiness in the memories of maimed men,
Mothers, and children.What to do now?
AH…Once I was told taking lives was the life I needed,
But now I know there was much more to hope for.
…
Much more to aim AT than innocent targets in the bush
(c) Nyonglema
Dedicated to the soldiers in the Ebola fight: all Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea nurses and doctors, and international volunteers. Below some names of soldiers alive or dead who’ve helped our humanity in no particular order:
Pauline Cafferkey, Abraham Borbor, Samuel Brisbane, Victor Willoughby, Diana Sarteh, Teresa Romero Ramos
__________________________________
The alarm growls “Wake up!” in song into her sleeping ears
As slowly she opens brown blood-shot eyes
To swipe upwards at the pulley menu on the buzzing screen
To dismiss the noise and jump out of warmth into ice
Cold morning brings to her bones with draughty jeers.
Off into the cold she drags her tired body.
Off to the hospital where she spends long days and nights,
Fighting death in guerrilla battles – some she’d win
Some would come back as knife-sharp nightmares and fright-
As she cared for the mildly sick and critically sick bodies.
“Today is special though” her fear-stricken heart surmises
As she walks in and switches apparel and goes working.
Today’s different: the heat in the astronaut gear;
The multiple scrubs; the care to take everywhere you’re walking;
The hope…no….prayer that your bit suffices to grow survivors;
Living the working day through a visor: Different.
This deadly virus vying for plague of the millennium
By bringing entire families to the pier of the Styx,
Fills the ward where she must administer care and calm delirium,
While calming her pulse enough that she would be efficient.
Can they hear her heart beat? Can they smell her fear?
Just a drop from the wrong spot on her exposed skin
And she’d join them here without the white armour,
Swinging on the balance of life from a kinked shoe string,
Unable to bring the love that brought her here.
Yes. She knows it might be over at any time:
Her ardour, her love, her care, her own piece
To the fight against the miniscule giant threat.
But she takes up her arms to fight the disease,
A soldier of love giving new hope to the living and the dying.
(c) Nyonglema
I wave my blistered hand before my bleeding face,
Waving gunpowder smoke and blood fumes in the mist
To see the survivors, to see hope.
But all I see is crushed bones and leaking skulls;
All around the steaming tarmac lie lifeless lads,
Lost lives fill the air with more choking tears.
But we can’t cry now!
“Run! Run! Before they cast another bomb on us!”
I’m on my feet, staggering forward like an alcohol keg,
Surprised to be running alone to the porous camp shelter;
Oblivious to pain, oblivious to care, I stagger on.
Hoping to get my weapon and answer their fire.
It is then it dawns like a wooden blow on me:
I’m no soldier; they aren’t either!
Infant body parts entangled with women and men’s blood
Litter the town square, and I’m staring at the military shelter:
A wooden icecream stand with holes on the whole frame,
And blood , and burnt flesh reeking in the foetid smoke;
And… I break into tears.
(c) Nyonglema
Picture this: the sun engraving sweat streaks
On your sizzling skin, stinging your eyes
As the humid heat hits your cheeks
Painting pain all over your 37°C-and-rising
Body stuck in the thick traffic like on all weeks
Barely breathing, headed home from the day’s trials.
And a-blaring come crowding the air those sirens:
The horns from cars speeding as if to mock
Our stillness. The cops with walkie-talkies pulling reins
On all who wish the way home were shorter:
“Order!” “wait!” The horns go from shrill – and since
There’s “order” – to barytone peace while we still sweat.
The sun’s still engraving its streaks on me
The heat still heating my sorry cheeks
This metallic cage stuck amongst so many
Others like it, ordered to stop for the glorious horns,
Is starting to feel like a microwave oven to me.
But what can I do? The gods were passing.
(c) Nyonglema
Terror lurks in the darkened eyes of a growing child
As each minute she dips into the shrieks from her mama, 25;
Marked dad curled in silence on the ground, wanting life,
Marked by another man who’d barely seen seasons 25.
She recalls how daddy cried out and fell silent to the ground.
Mum recoiled at many punches many staunch “men” had found.
She was 4 back then, and saw as men 12-year olds from out of town
As they ripped her mama’s clothes…she closes her eyes, counting each heart pound.
She recalls that red stream that slithered to her hidden corner
Soaking her skirt; soaking in hurt like staring at the sun’s corona.
Outside guns rattled, taking out all who could mourn her.
Lonely, the tears trickled down slowly, spelling “Were’t I wasn’t born, Ah!”
Slowly the tears trickled down that lonely jaw…
“Jane”, cried the professor, “What’s the result of this mixture?”
Jane knew not what was before, she stood there distraught.
She wishes she could do better, but her past sticks in the picture.
(c) Nyonglema
Standing in front of the hidden entrance
On horseback, with loud sacks
Clinking as loot hit loot.
With smiles of satisfaction adorning their faces
The chief said the magic words, and in went the team;
Safe from the spoiled, safe from the world,
Ready to go back out and lay misery on poor souls
(C) Nyonglema
Zillion supporters screaming, a loud buzz,
Yearning to return home cheered by vitory.
Xerox machines preparing the next day’s papers; Max
Wit for the shame or fame of a member of the show.
Violent vitriols from commentators like engine rev
Unites with supporters’ glee at likes of Eto’o or Kanu
To spur skill at each minute to get even one stunning stunt
Spirits soar, sink, so it is, for here serenity bores.
Roulette, lifté, counter-attack by one party raising the roar.
Quick kick! Oh no! Replay?! Why not? That must join the FAQ
Pray the corner slays the opponent; oh that header was sharp!
Oh he missed that goal again! No replay?! Hell no!
No! Now he’s channelled that ball too late for the man,
May the coach coach correctly and call him to quit the team!
Leave the pitch you little loss-bringing imp! LOL!
Khaki-wearing “messer” I can even get your reek!
Just as our jests are about to milk out laughs, I couldn’t find a word to end with “J”.
Instead I had a whole lof of them J-starting words. So I
Hunched to think, but then looked up at the BROOHAH:
GOAL GOAL!! Oops the scorer is the Mr. Bug!
Fooled? No, I’m still for him leaving,( Scoring oaf!)
Even though this elation, release and joy, came from his device!
Defensive tactics, offensive backing up, I can almost get mad
‘Cos the best defence is attack Doc!
Bye losers, we took this easy. Supporters bob
Away, and the whole stadium sleeps in the starlight bathed by mother Luna.
(c) Nyonglema
Count your blessings
Hit the mark more often
Reading, Writing, Hearing and Tasting the Art of Life
When reluctance gives in to the urge of expression....
waghni 