In earnest beyond the Pings and Bongs of firearms
And call to live your life on the ground with raised arms
I see one dying people
Taking shots from lying people
And, they, dear friends lose again amidst the hearse’s palms.
(c) Nyonglema
Tag Archives: central africa
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.
Para Bellum
Arm deals and more arm deals, that’s all I see.
Calibres change, the type of artillery
Changes, the game players grey and go and
Are replaced by darker capillary
With greater thirst for bleeding enemy
And with more dangerous artillery.
Deadly toys in the hands of eager youth,
Intended for warding off intruders:
Scaring them with heaps of artillery
So that they would harder prepare soldiers
If they should covet and desire to loot.
In their minds they have peace in their brooders.
But to brood over unused firepower
While only playing with blanks on dummies
Kindles unquiet thirst only blood can quench
Kills empathy for sonless war mummies,
And in blasts of gun smoke the youth’s flower
Drowns its thirst in the thud of fall’n bodies.
(c) Nyonglema
African Seed
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
waghni 