Tag Archives: Cameroon

sadness

Silence

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Bullet holes never make noise.

The wife watching the blood ooze from her heart she had given to be kept
Will surely scream for help in a wilderness where hospitals are unicorns.

The kids watching will maybe be quiet in shock, for death is something
Strange, like an old unicorn, like a dying unicorn. Their tears will speak.

The assailants will most likely keep screaming and thudding, as they protect
Their team from the bullets they called for. Carrying their wounded and dead.

The guns will keep firing, as their owners pull their legs about freedom
And their bullets silently steal blood or steal souls like mini-Reapers.

The government will pass blame, the opposition will pass blame, and both
Will stay silent on how they can stop the bullets from making guns loud.

But bullet holes never make noise.

They just wring your heart, hopes, and joys in one silent instant, and leave you
Clutching your breast, squeezing the person who now must also remain silent.

(c) nyonglema

#RIP Charles Wesco. God’s got you.

sadness

In Justice

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The cats have given way to the lions, which is but normal,
And the dogs have left the hyenas too, which is but normal.
The deluge is feeding the thirsty soil, then drowning it.
Crowds gathered and stuck their eyeballs to the CRTs,
Tuned their ears to the frequencies scrambling out the court
Or council, picking the words apart, indulging in idea sport
And clinging to one hope…the unspoken one, the forbidden one.
Then the judge and justice did the Rocky dance and none won
And the lawyers lied, then bent the truth, and justice died,
While a whole nation bent over in pain and cried.
Never had I seen injustice in justice, or madness in wisdom.
The deluge is so bad that Noah is thinking of making a comeback
To the land he saved once, to save again, to save our pack.

(c) nyonglema

sadness

Talking with bullets? Lose-Lose #Cameroon

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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

sadness

The End….#Cameroon #CivilWar

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May never come.
The orcs hold up the putrid decay once a man’s foot
Sniff it and toss it into the cauldron, and scratch
The bumps on their backs dancing to the rays of the
Flames. There are not enough. They must hunt.
They need more, more, more.
A snort and off into the wild to get more blood
Take more lives.
The prophecy foretold of Dylogus, who would slay
The orcs, but when he was born, a sword
Visited his jugular vein, and his body the
Intestines of these vile creatures.
The sticks scream under the orc’s steps, the leaves
Rush out of harm’s way, and human laughs
Turn to blood-gurgling screams, and
All mourn Dylogus, and there’s growing sense
That the end of suffering was killed with him too.

(c) nyonglema

To all losing their lives in this senseless civil war, RIP: God’s got you.

Pray, pray that there’s an end to the madness. I have hope about the future, but bear great fear as well.

anger

Genocide is just a word

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Happy celebration Cameroon

It all starts with the “genos” part:
   If there’s no race, it doesn’t exist
   So history gets braided into little kids’ hairs
   Till they remember only the victor’s tryst
   With death, in order to save our forebears
   For graves never wrote history. A cyst
   Of truth is hidden deep where the death of fear
   Meets the death of youth at the barrel to the sun.
   Lifafa is wiped with the shroud of Um
   Till “genos” is but a word in beach sand.
 

And with no “genos” there’s no “cide” :
   Self defence is the panacea of every atrocity
   Little children with gaping brains
   Young girls’ cocoons bitterly maimed
   Young boys disappear to be brutally tamed
   Humanity at the end of life gets hastened
   And propaganda is Elvis doing a pirouette
   On a 60s world stage where truth was left
   In the cold of the theatre’s steps.

 
So no “genos”, no “cide” and the UN higher-ups can tuck their kids in cosy blankets, with Winnie the Pooh splayed along the left creases, give a forehead kiss, walk to their own bed, sleep and prepare for another non-eventful day at work.

(c) nyonglema

sadness

Tomatoes in the Wagons #stopWar

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When I think of the wars in Cameroon, my mind goes to Asa’s Fire on the Mountain: “Could it be love for your country, or for the gun you use in killing?” she sings.

I think she missed the “greed” question, that could desire to sacrifice human life to sustain the funding of the war, and generate income for some uncanny souls. Well finite are the resources, finite are the humans


Tossed around in the wagons, the tomatoes bounce on each other
Squashed one at a time on a path they didn’t decide
On a path they must follow like human life.
Then the owner calls to the controller
And the engineer, yet noone hears
And squash, splat, squash
Till all left
Is just
One…

(c) nyonglema

fear

Shooting your foot #Cameroon

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I told him exactly the same as I’m telling you now:

The gun you point at your people is a gun you point
At your pupil, or at your pupils, or through a peephole
Into a future with LED lights lining trees capturing
Sunlight, and lightning, a future enlightened
By the lightness of the smiles of generations to come
A peephole looking back at the nozzle of a barrel.

I knew he wouldn’t listen, for without the ash splattered
Against my mane wisdom cannot be part of my game.
All their epithelia are the same, waiting for epitaphs
Epilogue to tales where epic lies dominate photographs
Of instants of truth, painful truth….like the peephole
And the barrel, and they’ve seen it all, the seed to the tree
The stream to the river, the whole range of our history

I knew he wouldn’t listen, nor read, nor taste of my sweat,
But maybe my blood, so I painted myself like the others
Vehement in thoughts dancing entrapped in cages of fear
Where the lines on the 60 leaves plane-leaved exercise book
Jump off the page where you jotted your deepest hopes for
Change, change into pain, twist your arms and pull your fingers
Around them. They turn into metal, and you’re looking out,
Wishing for a desk, a pen, but not even a toilet for your rear’s near.

But I know He will listen. He doesn’t read these words
He feels them. He sees my prayer that we’d stop crowding Peter’s
Waiting room: the logistics department had to order new magazines,
About cars, about medicine about emptying magazines on citizens,
To accommodate the throng waiting for their lift to the final
Destination: Heaven or Hell. The water dispenser needs refilling,
This place wasn’t designed for such affluence…well there was Noah,
Or better still his time, but there was enough notice for facilities
To be put in place. Not this time…but I know He listens.

So, they told him exactly as I tell you now:

When words can save the souls of many,
Lay Guns to rest by Pride’s old body
And dare to save another’s soul today
For face to face mountains all decay.

(c) nyonglema

sadness

Something fishy #discrimination

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My colleague wants the Art of Zen, in French of course
Translated from Japanese…I suppose, for they started it.
But she wants it from the UK…I’m like: “That’s horse –
Shopping in the middle of the ocean…they’re more likely
To stock it in English, you see. But I’ll search in Italy”.
Then, I find myself in Dakar at some point, and while walking
In the mall, a bookstore calls to me. I go toward it.
They don’t have it, neither here nor at Mermoz. But the thing
That hangs on my brain like a shroud, while the lady pours
Out the information is the fact that English books are here.

Think about it: this is an all French country, colonised
By France, having spent all their lives with them.
They had books in English, and games too …to my surprise.
Then I asked myself about other countries, which should be
Carrying these as standard, where books would be
In every stall in 2 languages as per their constitution.
And my heart sunk. I felt pain for every single one of them
In such countries, where language replaces skin’s function
In the minds of those who wear hate like a hat I despise
And cower to the custody of morbid segregation and fear.

Well, prejudice is a but a bug in the universe’s most infant app
And it takes mere (not sheer) will to wipe it off our map.

Take up your napkins boys…it only seems hard.

(c) nyonglema

sadness

In my hood #abnormal #legoPoetry

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I ask myself  If the world turns different, and
if the paintings  From the depth of my hood or
Around the world  the scribbles on my wall,
Feel sames as  if peeled-away hope, is all  
That on my wall.  lives and hope ask
Am I just crazy?  For: wanting to be!

(c) nyonglema

I’m going to one day make a #LEGOpoem that really works. I’ll keep working at it and sharing what I get with you, no matter how imperfect. Maybe it will inspire somebody to combine 3 poems in 1 in this way.

This is a reflection on the paradoxes of my home, where the laws are strong, but the law is weak, leading to a bleak picture where hope fades into the horizon…the norm is what is abnormal!

sadness

Truth or dare? #RIP #hope

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No neither.
I see… I see bird droppings zoom out the sky and
And…
Humans drop looking for luck in different spheres.
The crowd panics. Not felled yet, trees stand
And run for the woods where leaves shield.
And…
I see droppings hit the leaves, souls leave the trees.

Truth or dare?
No, neither.
Silence is the ether that burns the soul of the soldier.
Nobody believes the wood was felled,
As no noise was made when it fell in the woods.
Everybody says deforestation is a lie.
There were no birds, there were no trees,
There is no Earth, there is no you, nor me.

Just truth caught in a dare:
Dare to exist,
Dare to pervade,
Dare to be exchanged or dare to grow.
It lurks in the backdrop of wood becoming coffins.
It seeks to become a speaker box,
It seeks the Carpenter to heal the wounds,
But as is the case often, nobody wants to be true or dare.

Pride rides the pain of the thuds on Atlas’ load,
Rippling through his bones, and he bumps on the trees.
Then he screams: “Speak ye truth! speak to each other, in truth!”
And the leaves rustle,
And they listen.
And the felling stops,
And the yelling stops,
And truth dares to bare itself on the forest floor as
A shoot luscious green, midribs transfigured
In the shimmer of the star of the amber dawn.

(c) nyonglema

Communication can hurt or heal, it all depends on the wielder. But I’ve seen the simple exchange of perspectives lead to new solutions yet unheard of, which lead to bright futures for people whose positions hitherto seemed so radical that no consensus was possible.

Let’s dare to challenge our status quo. The future is ahead of, not behind us