Tag Archives: Cameroon

anger

Destroying a country

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Ever seen termites work a mighty tree down to a heap of saw dust and firewood? Out in Babadjou in Cameroon, I saw a couple of these, and it made me consider what happens when our politicians pilfer to fuel their expensive lifestyles….little things can break great things.

 

First, add a male and female termite.

Bullets and teargas canisters waltz on innocent citizens
And smoke and mud mingle macabre muffled paintings.
They are chanting “Freedom” to an invisible steel prison.

Then give them a tree to infest.

Angry the mob drenches the streets with angry chants
Division wrought by the Puppet Master now works its magic
The brother is the enemy, the cause is forgotten, just angry rants.

Then leave them to grow in might.

You bemoan the infection to  your brother so different but similar in pain,
But, they keep pushing you to see the messages not on the wall with cryptic
Words and thoughts from their hearts making them look better than your disdain.

Building hoardes of this pest.

The words they utter offer no solace, but promises on sandy beaches where
The crab harvests the turtle’s eggs, and multiplies to infest the beach
Where hope was born still, barren, hopeless, but unaware

Riding the bark, then diving inside.

That the votes that put them there were in good will, with faith and hope as motivators
While the campaign swishes were but fantasy to match the populace’s wishes
To have political saviours, but now clad in the armor of the captivator

Working the bottom to the crest.

Infernal  infestation by inhumane inhabitants instigating abominations,
Abrogating harbours, abolishing honour, abridging hope, love, faith,
And leading desperate souls to enlightenment in self-termination.

There: a wooden giant just died.

(c) Nyonglema

anger

Another type of love #politics

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They said they loved us.
They said what had hovelled us this long
Would melt in the ideas they’d put to physical form, fixing the forms, printing new laws to make more feasible new morns where dreams grow, where the beams of oppression become beaming faces facing greatness in all facets of a society phasing out the old, and phrasing in the new, and enacting, and without feigning bringing hope and growth anew.

They said we’d love it.
They said the picture would be bling
To the point of our dreams’ Everests, that they’ll brave the storms of whether to go with the hot or the cold, with the dry or with mould, or the new or the old, or whatever internal or from other holds could chip at our wishes, that they’d protect us, shield us in a new shell more robust than the previous, and keep our homes, culture, and aspirations safe anew.

They said they loved us.
The said we’d love it,
And this they said in words we’d listen to and miss the meaning shrouded like a zombie’s soul within idioms and colourful slogans painting derelict walls of our city gloom, and filling the air of family time with promises of Utopia today, Utopia tomorrow after Hell yesterday, and trickling out as if not premeditated and making us believe in Canterbury tales anew.

But now they hate us,
And hey! We don’t love it,
This stagnation like mosquito larvae infested ponds leaking putrefaction to our already putrefied systems, with corruption and stealing…no… embezzling being the order of the day, and deleting competition or young petitions to fix the predicament with silent words halted by violent wars. This stagnation so old we’ve lived that it even starts to feel like new.

Oh how they hate us
And hate that we don’t love it,
For to lord it over us longer they need us to be coy, kowtow, and shut up like Guantanamo torture secrets or that moment in a gory movie you are caught up between darkness and the bloodied blade and to speak your mind would Soweto you and your family in one instant, and depending on the riches you had, it will be featured, or not, on the news.

Oh how they hate us,
And how we wish we could change this
Situation with feeble will to exchange our lives with joy in the future generations as others before bothered to, feeble strength we are deluded to have whereas Gandhi taught us all by shooting up the opposition with words and Christ-like pain affliction and acceptance.
(c) Nyonglema

love

Sing for mum #ripNzie #Anne-Marie

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When you cross the Pearly Gates, will you sing for mum?

I recall those tender dew watered Yaoundé morns

When the cassette spun your voice out the Kenwood speakers,

Lulling my childhood ears to plains which white lilies adorn

And bees buzz the harmony to your vocals and the horns.

 

I recall especially as each new year died to birth another one

That mum would pop the cassette as metronome to the countdown.

And we would be eagerly watching the TV, eyes darting from clock

To TV, from clock to TV, holding on to the present’s each sound,

Conscious these moments shall roam hence only in Memory’s town.

 

The lyrics were beyond my mono-lingual grasp, but for “Liberté”

Where I felt freedom of my spirit soaring, and then “Bonne année”

Which nobody needed to explain. This is all I can take with me round

Memory’s town. But mum sure knew all the songs, and would sing away

As I watched in marvel as her lips waved a magical musical day

 

So Ma’am Nzie, this only I ask of you as you walk the path she took:

Let those words I didn’t understand but which my childhood shook

Pour once again beyond Peter, with love messages from me, three and more

And please, let her… please… harmonize once more every single hook

As once she did, but now in praise to my Maker as He lovingly looks.

 

(c) Nyonglema

 

 

 

 

 

sadness

Confused #FarhadAkale

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RIP Farhad Ebanje Akale (March 15, 1985 – October 5, 2013)

Monopoly is quite a peculiar board.
It has always fascinated me from the days we
Heard the rain drops play on the roofs on Bamenda mornings,
But played on, played on…I won some, you won some,
Our siblings won some. The air filled with a peculiar
Smell of joy which only the carefree spirit of youth
Brings.
I remember the whole Griffin collection
We dove into and made believe and had fun, diving
In and out of the books until the holidays were
Over in 1993, and we separated never to see again.

What got me thinking about you is a monopoly board, Farhad.
Got me wondering in the cold being I’ve become where
The fountain of youth in the memories we both had
Hides. Life has surely thrown it’s curved balls at you too,
But I was sure within me you’ll be ok. You always were cheerful.

When I typed “Farhad Akale”, I was expecting to scour through
Myriad faces on Linkedin and Facebook to find my old friend.
I wasn’t looking for an obituary page!
I didn’t want to see Slink performing a tribute to you.
I didn’t want to drown in the words of a father washing the
Lifeless bundle of memories from cradle to mischief
To a bullet hole.
To the bullet hole, I say, why did you take my friend?
I’m here teary eyed to the kid I left behind,
And for the adult I never got to meet.

This is not even a poem, I’m not even on technique. My hands
Which are usually still in the face of the most horrid gore
Are trembling. I’m stuck in a loop of pain at the stranger
You’ve become but what part of me you go with is considerable.
Those were the days we smiled roses and laughed daffodils
On lilac plains, dancing in the fragrance of a dozen
Sunflowers.

You probably forgot childhood too, but I hope the Griffin is proud of your
Life, and that you find peace beyond the coffin within which is your shroud.

By the way tomorrow is your birthday, so to all the ones I missed, these words
And prayers are for you till we are on the other side re-imagining our worlds.

(c) Nyonglema

joy

Not today #Gore #Slavery #Wilberforce #Racism

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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

sadness

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

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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

anger

Let’s Get Rich #bokoHaram #alShabab #fakeIslam #fakeJihad #crime

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Hey! Let’s go out there on a killing spree,
And loot, kidnap and fill our kitchen shelves
With bills from nations here and across the sea,
And diamonds, then weapons to protect ourselves.

Let’s find a bush wherefrom we’ll buzz then sting
And create routes through nobody could think
And in stealthy style steal their everything
Then plant scare as blood and powder stink.

Let’s mourn our dead as war counts their heads,
And hunt more silly heads to fill their beds
But how to go by this, despite the dread?
We must find a solution to keep earning this juicy bread.

Aha! Jihad’s incentive enough for youth to care:
Doing Allah’s work or risk His wrath for million years,
But to do His work means sweet blessings here
And paradise awaits after they’ve pulled your bier.

So say it loud, say it to the young and old:
“Fight for Allah as sacrifice or till you’re cold!”
But show them not our harems and stash of gold
For doubt could reduce the men in our hold.

(c) Nyonglema

anger

The gods are passing

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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

anger

Ali Baba and the 40 thieves (aka african governance)

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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

joy

FOOTBALL

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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