Tag Archives: blood

Talking with bullets? Lose-Lose #Cameroon

It was easier before:
    The cock crowed, Jesus turned, the tears flowed
    The cock crowed, I turned, and the shower flowed
    The cock crowed, luck turned, and tears flowed.

Easy solutions were easy to get while things were easy
But nine stitches rhyme with nine lives in their sick essay,
So time stitched hell and instead of being stitched in time
The fabric gaped open to swallow into its darkened slime
The baby, the bath water, the room, the parents, the villagers,
The fires, the char, the innocent, the pillaged, the pillagers.

It was easier before:
    But we always want more, and the tears flow
    But we always want war, and gun showers flow
    But we always taunt luck, and the tears flow.

Easy solutions were easy to get but Greed’s chains are titanium
Laced in a diamond lattice tying down the maestro of pandemonium.
The constitution had saved once, but those promises fell into the slime
Stitched by hell to cut workers’ pockets to benefit organised crime
Where everybody wants favour, everybody seeks the power to sign
At the expense of kids’ futures, mothers and fathers crying.

It was easier before:
    But now I need a visa, and I may not go
    But now I need a visa, to live in my own home
    But now I need a visa, to live.

Easy solutions will be easy to get where competence is worth any
But everybody wants favour, so logic took a stray bullet in the alley
And Cameronians closed their eyes on children crying
Everybody closed their eyes to the economy slowly dying
As if we were not one! I say we are one, and this war cannot be won
Until we become truly one: citizens, leaders (citizens), doing all to brighten the sun

It was easier before:
    But now everybody is strapped, like that fixes anything
    But now everybody is trapped like they can’t fix anything
    But you wear your ego like that fixes anything!

It is still easy now:
Let’s get back to being humans, talking with humans.
               That
                  fixes everything

(c) nyonglema

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

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

Death from a bike #bendskin #okada #opep #accident

I just saw a man die on the streets
With blood and broken glass and metal
Twisted from a sleek Senke bike
To an unrecognizable heap of twisted petals,
Black petals of Death, as it is used to strike.

Yes, I saw that man die on the streets,
While this morning he forehead-kissed his kids
And wife, promising to bring home a meal that night
And they watched him leave with hopeful eyelids,
Not knowing there’ll be dirges and tears over hunger that night.

I saw that man die on the streets,
After a mad driver rushing over pothole puddles
Couldn’t stop his truck in time, and rushed over his body
And though he’d rejected all passengers, my blood curdles,
For this single death already is such a tragedy.

I just saw a man die on the streets,
With blood, glass, metal, and mud
Littered in a gruesome Picasso on the ground,
And the tears flow down my cheeks thinking “Oh God!”
Orphans, widow, pain, more poverty born in one death on the ground.

(c) Nyonglema

Bloody Mosquitoes #mosquito #malariaKills #malaria #anopheles

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

Fading Smoke #collateralDamage #stopWar #peace #bombs

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

The other side of Freedom #theOtherView #EvilBegetsEvil

They said they loved me.
Then, the metal beasts came, soaring over me
Heaping dust and blood on our city streets,
As their lethal load hit like rain sheets.

I watched their love puncture the city walls
And sever the sinews off the boy and his ball
Leaving the mother crying for her son, then his dad
Till her tears meant nothing in the wailing myriad.

I saw the hate build with each blood drop
Drawn from the soldiers and innocent. Drop
For drop, survivors intend revenge upon this love shown:
This false love which spurs only hate till we’re all gone.

(c) Nyonglema

This is a view from the other side of fanatism. Taking more weapons to the Middle East will only push more bereaved honest Muslims in despair to take up arms to avenge their lost ones: in that state where all is lost, the fanatics find fodder for their ideas, and turn these honest citizens into murderous terrorists. There has to be another way. A politician suggested diplomacy and negotiations. May another way be found, for bloodshed will only lead to more bloodshed. May the souls lost in the wars on both sides R.I.P.