Tag Archives: Jesus

love

Myriam Batjoachim #motherofGod

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The Angel offered to seize it all:
    Your peaceful days gathering water
    Your anonymity doing God’s ways,
    Waiting for your spouse to take you
    In order to save an ungrateful people.

You said yes!

The governor forced you on a census, with
    Baby pressing your bladder,
    With back ache, spots on your face
    No room to calm Braxton Hicks
    Just you Joe and the animals
    And the grass the animals ate
    And when it was time to push,

You said yes!

The prophet embarassed you with your newborn,
    He promised you the grace you knew
    He promised you lots of pain new
    And you pictured the sword, your heart
    And figured greatness breeds pain
    And looked at Joe’s encouragement,

And said, well, yes!

And at Cana, where the harps hung on empty cups
    You turned to your baby boy
    All grown, all full of hope,
    And bade him do them a favour.
    Yes, you set it all up, for his
    First miracle, and the Lord

Said yes!

And throughout his ministry, he would taunt you with denial
    To teach love of neighbour beyond family
    But you were the first disciple,
    You rode his pain, you shared his joy
    And I can picture the conversations of
    Mother and son, advise shared, wisdom shared
    And through rain, sun, hail, gale, miracle,

You said yes!

And when his coronation came close on a donkey and palms
    You saw the blood that would end
    The journey of love; you saw the manger
    The temple, the sermons, the crowds,
    The miracles, the thorns, the cross,
    The blood that would end it all.

Yet, you said, yes!

And as John watched your tears reflect his blood, whence
    You couldn’t parch his raging thirst
    Nor re-nurse those childhood wounds
    Nor hug the pain out of infant tears
    Nor sing a lullaby to ease the sleep
    Nor rub his back to heal the pain,

Your tears said, yes!

And as they took the nails out his hands, as he lay on you,
    And love slithered to constrict your chest
    And the tears bubbled out to heal his death
    You sought to comprehend it all
    And prayed the roles were reversed,
    And God said, you’ve done well my child
    For the salvation of many, and again,

You said yes!

(c) nyonglema

love

Searching for Eggs #HappyEaster

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Happy Easter to all of you; Seek the Light as it pours into your hearts

Where can those chocolate eggs be?
Eggs beaten, made into omelettes.
They said you can’t make one without breaking eggs.
So God took a pan and broke a few…they sounded like bones:
The egg white as water, the yolk as heavy as blood.
Mine was, anyway, the promise of Adam.
I saw a curtain rip the Earth apart,
As a cross took God on a roller coaster ride
To a destination we all must go…but all fear to go:
Like wanting to go in a public toilet…but…
The yoke was heavy on humanity, and God broke it
He made us new, and I saw Mandela’s advice:
It went something like:
Aim not for your fears, but for your hopes.
So God bled tears on stone, and went for one hope:
That your soul (well our souls) would find light
Even in the deepest darkness!
He accepted the treacherous lips of death
And the deprecating thorns and cape that drew his blood.

He did it for you, that you may have new life with him
On the day He gave new life to Himself. Amazing right?
God died our days away with His pain, love, and light.
Those eggs look pretty that way….if any of this was about eggs anyway.

(c) nyonglema

joy

Home #nature

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There’s an orchestra in the trees
A funny band they are, uniform with instruments.
The same notes rustle enchanted leaves,
Putting on a show for the feathery clouds pasted
Across the tapestry of God’s palace,
(For a carpenter, it’s strange He fancies blue)
Spreading before my eyes covered in awe
Taking it all in: the air pressure mounting Bucephalus to move
Feathers on the band, the sunlight stealing trinkets of colour for
My hungry eyes, the Earth of golden brown,
Holding years of history in stories it whispers to my consciousness
As I grab a fistful of my raw material.
Maybe I should seek a seat by those rowdy fellows
And watch their breasts vibe at the resonance
Of nature’s beauty.
Oh that band of one instrument.
One as an instrument taking me home.

(c) Nyonglema

surprise

Bright Lights #transfiguration

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Whoa! I have never seen this one before!
Diamonds sparkling where trees swayed, casting
Their awestruck projections of myriad rainbows
Upon our faces, and straight to our hearts.
What feeling is this?
This brings me back to that day on the boat,
When salvation changed my trade, and made the day after
Never the same.
How can I describe this post-war type
Peace that pervades my heart like a first breath,
Like a first love?
Even the fragrance of white lilies swims into
My nostrils, are the others getting this?
Who is that? Wow, that beard, that robe.
I know.
I know.
I know.
This is amazing, should I talk to him?
Should I inquire what he did when we left him behind?
Should I…wait, and who’s that now?
Oh the beautiful chariot of fire. Chariot of fire? Chariot of…
My goodness, are we really here? Rabbi, is this where
We are promised?
Is this where we shall find rest after it all?
Rabbi, this feeling should last forever.
These bright bedazzled rocks, the sweet music
That paints joy all around us subtly,
These smells never before smelled,
All this should last forever.

(c) Nyonglema

joy

Looking for Rafiki #rise

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There are times that life gets so complicated that you lose hope, that you believe that you are just a mistake in God’s master-plan. In those moments, you may wish to be in a movie.

Like in the Lion King, where all goes bad, then here comes Rafiki with the water reflection trick to make you see yourself, you wish for that epiphany. Then you say to yourself it will never happen…well maybe here it is 😉




My soul is longing for peace,
My mind is working on the fleece of the wool of redemption.
Dad always said the only solution to anything was preemption,
But …that’s not helping now, I need magic beans, or even peas.

I’ve scraped my knees
Against the floor, bruised my thighs like a failed sliding tackle
And broken my fingers with nothing to show but my lost battles
Hanging like trophies in a hive deserted of bees.

I’ve seen life seethe,
And stink to the brim with no solace, direction or intention,
Smelt the reek as if each of my steps would take me up the proverbial creek
Yet my Sisyphus reward is to walk still and breathe

Yet you Lord look me
Deep within the soul at that time I dare not look at a mirror
And see more than gold where I sense but ghouls and cheap horror
But dare not call for help ashamed and cuddling my defeat.

You see the meat,
Where I see only decay clinging to bones as the flies tug,
Cheese where I see but milk going away as the flies would tug
And You call to me, and call again while I pull up my bed sheets.

Totally hid I feel,
Yet You still see, still call, still love, still long
For that seed you sowed to bask in the raining glow of the sun
And dance to the tune of photosynthesis and mitosis and start to reel

Totally dead I feel,
For undeserving, I am served with the most beautiful voice
Of hope from a fellow human sent by You, I push away the buoys
You send because this despair loves this creek stroking the keel.

But you Lord look me,
And beckon louder, and louder, and louder, each bellow more potent
Than the previous, and like trees swaying by the wind bent
I feel the soul you gave me reach for the rudder, but me

I love this creek,
So I pull it away. But you beckon even louder and louder and louder,
And maybe that’s when I hear the prayer my soul’s slowly powdered
On my days in the silence of my subconscious, courageous and meek

I love this creek,
Lord, but it hurts to be this deep. I’m accepting what I can’t change
Just like you advised. Don’t pull me out, I don’t deserve any chance.
That’s my conscious rationalising. But I sense my soul’s subtle leaks.

The transcripts are in,
It calls to its Maker in hidden text, and writes lengthy memos,
I’d not read. I’m starting to hate this creek through its demos.
Maybe it’s time to leave. But will you Lord take me back in?

You Lord look me
Deep within, beyond my saddest moments, beyond my soul’s hardest
Torments, beyond the times I pushed you away trusting my breast
Alone, you Lord choose me again, You really choose me

And call on me,
To cast my burdens, to cast the yoke I have piled on my shoulder
And leave the creek wherein I’ve been rolling up the evil boulder,
To come home: your love gives me hope, your love heals.

(c) Nyonglema

joy

Alleluia #Easter #newBeginnings #spring

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Everyday is a new opportunity to get a new beginning in your life. Life walks around distributing lemons, what are you going to do with them? Make lemonade or leak tears?

A man used death to save the world!
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Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia

  The Lord is risen, the flood in Eden
  Has ceased this morn, Alleluia !

  My joy was hidden, in death’s throes shivering
  Till bright light shone, Alleluia

  My soul met Evil and thought it was even,
  But oh…hope won ! Alleluia !

  Alleluia, the choir’s wings shiver
  To swell up the storm of Alleluias

  Alleluia, the choir sings forever
  Alleluia, Alleluia

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia

  Darkness broke with the wake of the globe.
  As it spun the light into sight, Apostles woke
  To the shrill voices of hope who’d gone with balm
  But brought back joy that whole nations will calm.

  Alleluia, no tremors no splinters
  When my Lord came hither, Alleluia

  Alleluia, off came the fetters
  When the Word came home, Alleluia

  God’s face was my brother, the cross brought bother
  But oh…hope won, Alleluia

  Hope’s all my fodder, but life was asunder
  Till bright light shone, Alleluia

  Yes, He is risen, my soul praise the heavens!
  Death ceased this morn, Alleluia!

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

(c) Nyonglema

surprise

Palms for murder #HolyWeek #Easter

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You know a human’s about to get you when the honours come out.
They raise you on a pedestal, higher than your donkey mount.
They hail you, with palms to grow on your funeral mound.

But that’s not today, today it’s Hosanna in excelsis
It’s blessings to He who comes from deepest exegesis
It’s wholly holy people praising salvation’s catalysis.

Not the funeral mound no! But seeking some greater cause:
Freedom from the Roman “alphabet” to “alefbet” theirs.
Freedom borne by a donkey marching majestically with no pause.

You know a human’s about to get you, when you’re set to fail
By their standards. We’re human, and when we start to ail,
Everything seems either brighter or of a darker shade of pale

We raise Hope on a pedestal, higher than a donkey can,
And wish the standards are earthly unlike the first Eden ban,
Or the Earth in glory bathed, but humble when it began.

And we miss it all, the real glitter that Easter brings,
Looking for the suave mauve of bigger and bigger kings,
In a manger, then a cross, then a tomb, then everything.

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

Downhill #despair #darknessIt

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It all goes downhill from here.
At home, I’m not the man I paint
On the wall of my dreams. I’m not he.
My kids see me, but I see a faint
Depiction of myself, riddled with fleas
I see a demon with horns in their saint
Advising, holding, downhill to hell.

It all goes downhill from here
When even at work your effect is faint
And your figures are wrong, targets wrong
And failure’s the only thing you acquaint
As the reports are filed and you’re wrong wrong.
Where did you go wrong in all that you meant
To achieve as you go downhill to hell?

It all goes downhill from where
Suicide lurks in the scripts on the page,
Taunts you with methods, means to fix this.
Gives you the manual to soothe and assuage,
In detailed depictions with diagrams and digits,
To stop decay and just leave it all without rage
Down down down down downhill to hell.

It all goes downhill from here.
Even the staff is broken, staring with rage
As you disgust in the reek of your failure.
The promises filled the meter, but didn’t meet the gauge
And your futile attempts to fix are lures
To aggravate the stench and meet Murphy’s adage:
“It will go downhill downhill to hell.”

 

What’s left? What’s left? What’s left?
Nothing. Nothing. Downhill downhill …to hell.

 

But it need not go downhill from here.
Your finger’s on the trigger of solace, or so you think.
There’s a Saviour in true panoramic review
Of the situation. He resets the stroboscope on your blinks
So you can see the brightness now out of view.
It’s never easy when the dishes seem to overfill the sink
But it always goes down down and away from hell.

For it only seem to go downhill from here
Because pain injects despair and shortsightedness within
And Hope’s disguised as sci-fi anime.
But if you look deeper, that veil will wear out very thin
And within God whispers each step of the way:
“It’ll be OK. Let me take you off the sand for a spin”
And your “Yes” will take you up up and away to well.

(c) Nyonglema

joy

Where is my Map? #writing201 #lost #stray #pindaric #ode

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You light the way that leads to my life,
Love on the cross shines down on my strife,
Saviour, my Lord, save me today,
Show me the way, Lord take my hand

I saw the stars the dark ones oh Lord,
And lost my sight, and followed the hoard,
Deep in I went, yes sought out the void,
‘Twas so devoid of Love in this land

Draw me nearer, Master nearer,
Draw a way to save what’s left today
Draw me nearer, Master hear us,
Listen and save your children as humble we pray.

(c) Nyonglema

joy

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

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Two thousand years later, and we still long for the star
Of Bethlehem shining over our worn with work eyes.
And though love and joy and hope may seem far
Remember this season that: Love can thaw all ice,
That joy falls aplenty like a paddy of rice
That hope was born that day, but never it dies
If you share the love, joy and hope like He who brought that star.

To you and your families and loved ones, near or far,
(To the lonely take the joy to other lonely lives),
May He be born this Christmas  within your hearts and hearths
To guide and guard. Merry Christmas and Happy New Life next Year.

(c) Nyonglema