Tag Archives: Cameroon

fear

Read and blacked #noViolence

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There’s a call from the depths of the shadows of the trees.
No, it’s but a whisper…no a whimper
A finger pointing to the sky as if to hold back its ghost,
By passing through the hook in the tail, where it anchored once
And gave purpose to the mouth, seeks the words.
Yesterday adrenaline threw a party and welled up,
As the radios piled up the tension in the atmosphere
In the warehouse of his soul. The finger lowers, slowly.
Maybe not this time. Maybe it will have to let go. Maybe the eagle
Will fly away with the message and alert the angels, or
Inspire a new way to change, a new way to love.
Just a whimper in the bushes, now red and black,
With caking blood clinging to the midribs as if
Scared to touch the screaming ground, where many dead lie.
Just a whimper, oblivious to those running around it, defending,
Taking bullets, giving bullets. This looks like some buffet
In Hell. Brothers are sharing a beautiful meal of hate,
While the future hangs on a finger, which wished for more
Than dying slowly in the clamour of unwanted war.

(c) Nyonglema

1st of October 2017, my kids almost lost their only great grandmum, but many parents shall have to bury their children, and some children will have to bury their parents. My deepest condolences brothers and sisters.

I don’t know about you, but a bullet never solved any problem. When the protagonists are all dead, all that’s left is hate in the hearts of the grievers, and revenge hangs heavy like the reek of putrid grudges. Hate begets hate, love begets love. Let’s be humble and love each other, for like with everything, you can only decide when the war is born, you don’t know the day nor the hour when everything is so torn that the war must die

Like with every positive message, I fear this will be read and blacked out…please share. Let’s stop the spiral of hate!

anger

Hiking home #traffic #sogea

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Right now in my city, there are so many traffic jams, I’m cursing Sogea Satom for the way they are handling the whole construction project they are on. It will soon be over, but daily the anger born from stillness eats my insides like Edgar Poe’s Raven.

I still think they could do more, and that we the citizens could help them by being more civil and cooperating with the cops to reduce this frustration. Well, till we figure that out…it’s me, the car, and the clock.


The engine grumbles,
Rain washes away my joy
No birds are singing

Just unwanted ticks
Infecting the dashboard clock
Staring time away

The engine grumbles,
Rain plays with my heart, its toy
Seeding anger, more

And it grows to trees,
So tall the raven would nest
And infest with eggs

And laugh at my casket.
And electronics don’t tick
And my wheels don’t spin

So it’s just flashes
Of my life quickly passing
On the dashboard clock.

(c) Nyonglema

anger

Are they civil ? #sogea #satom #douala

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No !


You’d think “Maybe” if you listened to the complaints about Sogea-Satom’s slow operation lasting beyond schedule and creating craters cradling cars to sleep in watery coffins.
It’s 5:30pm, I’m on my way home.
Slowly in first gear through one I go.
Slowly through the second I go.
No. I tell you they aren’t civil.


  I brake.


To my right are two lanes of cars blocking pedestrians trying to stomp the pavement, and the cars honk as if right, and fight for right of way, while the police stare dismayed, and the rest on the normal way display anger, frustrated for they know all those will go first, not they, unless they go for the throat of the pedestrians and throw care away.


  Clutch out, first gear, it moves. I brake.


There’s been days 10km turned to 100
And days 10km became as long as a trip to Kenya
When from the airport the person boarding calls you in traffic, “I have arrived”, and you bash your brains on the steering in a Kobain tantrum, and look right at those civilians as a bunch of Brady Ians when you consider they aren’t civil.


  Clutch out, accelerate a little, and then brake.


One’s trying to skip the line in front of you as the police arrive and raise an index finger to remind them that the pavements are for feet, and it’s a car a lane, and she struggles with you not caring if her rush to arrive is marred by her marring your patient eagerness to see your home by scratches and dents on metal…hopefully she doesn’t.


  Accelerate, brake, my soul breaks.


What’s wrong with these people? The same sad song daily, and the same solutions are brought daily, but learning is water on a ducks back so…


Clutch out, accelerate, brake.


(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Jammed #douala #lagos

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No strawberry, no mango, no raspberry or sour fruit,
Just me, angry honks buzzing overhead, while smoke stabs the planet.
A seed is sown, a green one that whispers jealousy, painted
With the blood of all those cars on another way, going ahead, going away
While angry honks buzz overhead, and I’m still, stabbing the planet.

It’s jam, there’s a little too much of it in the glass jar,
Staring at me wicked-eyed, like : stay there, let the ants
Eat your sticks on the clutch, while you wish to shift the stick.

The sun gets bored, the wheels move an inch, no just a pinch
Of the jam. It dips it in vinegar and pours on my tongue, water
Water, cars all around, but no water in site, and no shops in sight
And no bottle inside my hell, where the air conditioning drones
And the air mocks my impatient fingers drumming on the wheel, to the

Rhythm: heartbeat, temple vein, anger, heartbeat, temple vein, bigger
Stick shift, clutch, move, heartbeat temple vein, honk, frown, bigger
Thinking about jams, how delicious they are with bread, strawberry, other
But how this jam is going to call the raven on me stabbing the planet,
Stuck in the evil stare of the glass jar, wishing to shift,
That’s a real bother.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Wrong place #paris #kolofata

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Nine burnt souls float over roasted mayhem where souls are tugging their way out of resilient bodies.

All they remember is a bright light; the deafening din rushed towards their maimed bodies like Sir Hewett, and you know what they say about not hearing the bang…

They will no longer bathe in the bitter burnt flesh fragrance heavy in the smoke blundering through the debris.

They will not agonise with the grunts and moans coming from where wood and flesh, metal and flesh, and earth and flesh dance the Black Swan with darker shades of hell and oozing red.

But, they will nevermore hum a lullaby to the drowsy eyes of toddler dreams, nor bless the lips of a lover with a touch of their lips.

Their seat shall slice onions into the hearts of those sharing meals at the dinner table, and the past tense will follow every mention of the scathing memories of how happy they made this one or that one.

The media will mention their names for all to hear….or maybe not. This didn’t happen in Paris; who cares if 2 prepubescent girls blow up a refugee camp in Kolofata?

(c) Nyonglema
 

anger

Scream #oldDictators

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“I can’t breathe!”, I screamed. “I can’t hear!”, was the echo.

Think about it,
It’s thirty years the first promise was crafted
Yet, nothing positive has been thought or drafted.
The promises turned back on the journey to greatness,
And pain ossified them on the spot into vain… but wait, let’s
Go in deeper.

Roads, buildings, hope, dreaming, ‘dults, children, pots, three meals,
School, jobs, lost meaning when you lost will and, I guess, hearing.

It’s thirty years the first promise was crafted,
Or more, I can’t see what weird appendage has been grafted
To the future of whole generations aspiring
To be something, but vainly perspiring
And this instant

Promises pile, plausibly nigh, but possibly high, impossibly Pi
That nothing’s decided, nothing resides in the blank page on this side

It’s thirty years the first promise was…well more,
And each one feels like a Cinderella-before-fame chore
While the voices rise from the depth of democratic thorns
And die unheard, buried in the land of miles of dictatorial scorn.

And nobody hears the screams:
Hearing-aids titter on the side of the screen.
(c) nyonglema

fear

Laudatur probitas #politics

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It all starts with a good intention

If I could change the world? 
The switching of seasons can’t bring constancy of reason,
Where my people live treason, and profound division
In silence, in a world
Where their full potential is nobody’s goddamn mission. 

And escalates with good intention

	And that’s insane! 
My damn mission is to alleviate your burdens, 
	Elevate the status quo, no matter what the wardens
	Say in this bloody prison, I’m breaking the chains
	I’m going to fight for you sisters and brethren! 

And intentions with fodder gain attention
And graciously turn to further actions
	
	Fight till my blood’s gone. 
	Walk with me, fallen and lost, walk with me past the present
	Into a future where there’s no sullen, no dreams evanescent
	Only throngs growing strong, 	
	And I’ll make you see Heaven on Earth when I’m president!

And the actions grow to the expectations
Of those good intentions

	And now I’m president, how much better!
	See justice live in day, live from vampirism of before, 
	See collaboration with the opposition, but I want more! 
	Let’s find solution to every matter 
	Through collaboration, I’ve told you I need more and more. 

And temptation comes to haunt the decisions
As attention clouds intentions, warping the actions

	I told you I need more, more! 
	Walk with me. What? I said coercion isn’t a foreign language,
	When the army can assuage, or assiege your verbiage
	Of disses to me, and my chores!
	Walk with me now, or you’ll be safe from hampering us in your cage!

And the actions warped by other intentions…

	For we must reach this target, 
	Set by him who pays our bills. We must comply with the majority’s wish.
	Nothing else matters than keeping this power I have, this power which 
	Ebbs from my assets, 
	And if you think of stopping me, we’ll have you served a gifted dish

And the actions warped by other intentions…

	And if anybody complains, 
	We are taking them out. Ungrateful lot, I made you who you are
	And now you question the very mind that took you out of mar
	Into a new existence plane?
	Damn you all, let’s see who can get me off this high of power!

And the actions kill the budding good intentions, 
As if good intentions were greed, 
Forgetting, where they came from, 
Forgetting that they were fighting greed.
 
And that all started with a good intention.

(c) Nyonglema
anger

Unus pro duobus #unity #bringBackOurInternet

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Trust is the dragonfly of days of drench,
Though both brothers bother same from the same trench,
Wherein chains chip away their days into nothingness.
Their solace now whips around in he depths of the Loch Ness.

Universe 1: Damnation

“Brother conceal my future escapade cleverly
That I may bring panacea to you and me quite early”
But Trust had left the pit: “Together we are,
Together we remain or together to go far.”

“But, but two easy targets defeat our purpose!”
“But, but two easily defeat our perpetrators!”
“But the foundation of such a plan is our chains,
And one must be deception to the watching banes”

But Trust had left the pit: “Together we are,
And as am bigger, you’re not going far”
Trust is the dragonfly of days of drench,
Though both brothers bother same within the same trench.

“But…”, “I warned, and now your scorn means no lunch
Till your mind leaves the rocket of that mad hunch.
Together we are..” “And together we slowly fade
We won’t go far by licking their laurels of jade,

I stand my ground. Keep the food, but you shall
Conceal my escapade, or see the death of your pal.”
“Bluff, buff bluff! No food, let’s see the hourglass
Of your resolve heap hunger: Yes the idea will pass!”

Universe 2: Salvation

But in an alternate universe where Trust serves
The needy with new pathways out of tight curves:
“But, but two easy targets defeat our hidden purpose!”
” Yes, one safe, then two will easily defeat the perpetrators!”

Then the bigger worked at the weak link to free the boon
And Trust infused them with the will, and one was free
A shadow in the dim light of hell’s guarded cocoon
Saw light again, heard birds sing to the dancing trees.

The tears exploded out his accommodating eyes down
His cheeks, mingled with joy, and hope for a future
As he forged the mettle of captivity’s breakdown
One step of freedom at a time: the overture.

And Trust still lived with their click: “Together we are,
Together we’ll remain so together we will go far.”
“Yes, brother, let’s head to where we’ve sought long
And bring back ours. First water and food make you strong”

The battle brief baffled the captors, and the strong captive
Saved by friends welcomed Trust in the smiles of yesteryear,
Smiling the smile of one whom Genghis Khan would reprieve,
As they left what hell had become home for more than a 100 years.

(c) Nyonglema

anger

Breathe ….not #bringbackourInternet

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Breathe, breathe…I wish I could breathe.
The infant’s face crimped into morbid contortion by pending asphyxia
Breathe, the breath Adam received
The breath we all so very need,
Will dad listen? Will mum listen? Do they care about pending hypercapnia?
Breathe, no I won’t breathe till they care
Till somewhere in those stones a rose springs
Till within their souls they yearn to listen to me
Listen to my tears choking within my lungs
Curdling under my eyelids, hanging on a lash
As the echo of my dying complaints.
Did they hear it? I know it escalated from whimpers
To murmurs to screams…but all are now dying.
Like me, losing my life each dying second,
But nobody cares.

(c) Nyonglema

anger

Power #africa #cameroon #noViolence

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Is it the dark tunnel through which the bullet
Travels to draw blood and replace breath
With the reek of death?

Is it the bland plunder in schools of the culled kids
For their colour or deep rage born
From the system’s scorn?

Is it the grab-n-lockup foolishness you’re pulling
When any born cause is a menace for you:
Jail or the Reaper’s costume?

Is it the canisters seeking kids’ gullets
With gaseous odours of real painful
Teary eyes, pitiful?

Where’s your power? In the uniform or weapon?
In the blood on the floor, or the one on your hands?
In the lives of the sons and daughters not to see tomorrow?

Where’s your power? I would have thought of more
In food for the poor, sick souls’ solace, in infrastructure!

Where’s your power? I guess we’ll never know.

(c) Nyonglema