Hiding in mummy’s tummy, kicking happily away
I’m kissing you warmly, clapping and singing in play
They say in a few weeks
I’ll be able to kiss your new cheeks
I can’t wait for the morning I’ll lift you in a sway
(c) Nyonglema
Tag Archives: Family
The Peak
Dad said keep rolling you pick up no dust
Mum said you can my son, here are means
Big bro said chase the stars, failure will give you the moon
Big bro said stop lazing and wasting, get strapped for the future
Lil sis said I believe in you keep pushing
And to God I said thanks for Your grace, I won’t fail you none.
WHAT HAPPENS #Africa #Peace #StopWar
What happens when karma turns right around?
What’s clapping to demagogues’ speeches as they mount
Lie on lie,
Promising Sugar Candy mountains,
Each word thought as false as the applaud of the crowd
Gathering round?
What happens when arms turn your life around?
What’s laughing at demographic decay as bombs amount.
The sun’s less bright;
Dust, blood shoveled on rotting corpse mountains,
Each door wrapt in pain, writhing in tears at the shrouds
Which will cost heavy amounts?
What happens when mama’s turned down to the ground?
What happens in your heart as that man strips and mounts
Before your eye,
And rips and rakes; all those shrieks you hate mounting,
Each bone crimped in pain at so sad a sound
Tearing your tears out?
What happens when the army toss your dad around
With laughing? With machete slash his mouth,
Burst his eyes,
Chop him and put another piece to the corpse mountain;
Each part calling your sorrow as flames on the mountain fume in their bout
And your fingers are gripping the ground?
Mama Africa, can’t you see the arid ground
Soaking up the blood of your children?
Why are you so deaf to the sound?
Why are we cleft so profound into hateful factions?
…
So many questions,
No answers.
That leaves me pondering:
What happens when we’ve stomped all our brethren underground?
(c) Nyonglema
WHERE ARE YOU (PEACE) (2007)
Trudging amidst littered corpses resulting from fatal blood baths,
I asked myself in the middle of one wade: did Peace walk this path?
Did she, in her crystal beauty pause to hold conversation?
No! If she did I won’t be knee deep in human body parts!
Then I thought me, maybe she’s off to walk the holy paths
Wherein many kneel to walk closer to He who in Heaven art.
But the squabbling and quarrelling as each said his was the right one,
Made it clear she’d surely set off stealthily amidst their word darts.
Certainly, I told my weary self, she’d be found in family hearths.
But lo, the father scolds, the kids into devils moult, and that
Mother weeps, heart pierced by innumerable despicable horrors.
Poor me, I thought the quest past, but I must now restart.
Oh dear me! I’d forgotten those tender things she could fancy, children’s hearts!
What more jolly and jovially innocent? So at the door I knocked and dropped my hat
And then dropped my jaw, as all sorts of abuses walked the place.
I ran off discouraged , my energy spent. I lay on a mat.
Maybe what I have so sought was here in my heart?
I say to myself with confidence. But amidst my silent fights
Between right and wrong, the conscience bites and cloudy darkness
I knew for sure, I’d never see that fine lass.
(c) Nyonglema Pisoh
waghni 