It's a strange time when fruits don't fall off
But are frozen clinging to the sap of their birth,
Sheltered from new life by the green of
The tweeting branch swinging in July wind
Protected? More like hopelessly waiting
For the seed to push through in the air,
For the first greens to to start peeping
Out while still hanging onto childhood
But it all withers, decays in future pale!
The wife keeps her father's name
Lest the spark in the ring gets stale
And she gets forced to die to herself
The man calls his mum to figure out
if that decision he just took makes
Sense, whether he is right to doubt
The advice of the adviser he chose
Lest he actually start something new,
Be the shining armor bearing the banner
Gleaming in battle dawn on grassy dew,
Yes, lest he have to die for his spouse
The family isn't new, just a bad mixture
Of 2 before who in sacrifice built all
That this new couple's past calls future
While they deceive each other with vows
So next time conflict rocks the branch's comfort
Ask where your loyalty lies, what banner
Do you brandish in a fray? Who deserves effort
in case of danger? Your spouse or your parents?
Answer plainly, and let hope and courage transport
The seed to a new you: one flesh vs the world.
(c) nyonglema
Tag Archives: love
Shower, song and tears
It’s cold.
The water rivulets stab the hairs on my back
Till each like morning soldiers at attention,
Raise and pose. Water on my face is salty
Drop by drop rushing through the silence
Staring back at me in distorted human form
On knobs that don’t know you,
On a shower column that knows too
Well how to bleed without the red.
Sing! Break the silent solitude
With one of your songs!
A heart heaving for distant love
Mustering the strength to echo our words:
“Nell oscurità”. That’s where I am.
“Stretti forte e poi”. Poor me, not here.
Then choke. I replace the shower.
The pain hits pause to my singing, but
My eyes bent over towards the ground
Keep watering the glistening tiles
Like to grow you out of them right here.
But you’re not here.
You’re there where my heat cannot reach
And though promised soon to be, right now
The world’s but a cemetery with only you,
As my bowed head pours out, seeking you.
And the whole world misses your embrace
And the whole world is worse off for it.
(c) nyonglema
Crowd-sourced morality
Come, Eve, come
Tell us what the bite taught you,
What Muse did it point to
As a source of hope in the garden?
Shall this Muse guide us right
As answers evade us while questions assail
Us like trying to tease truth out with a flail?
Shall we live lives not requiring pardon?
Hey, Adam, hello
What wisdom did you gain in that instant
When you tasted freedom from commandment,
Wisdom to take away this yoke?
My peers all wear the uniform:
You only live once so make the “most” of it
By spending it all to appease pleasure’s heat
Submitting to what the body needs
My peers all seek a breed of freedom
Where you do whatever can and calls to be done
Unstopped by anyone, untethered from bonds
Till pleasure’s heat’s quelled
For carpe diem before it’s dark
Nothing comes after, so heal your temporal urges
And let the foolish waste what could be splurged
On fever dreams from Tiberius’s era
We from you have learnt
To fall upon our will to chart our way
Yet the murders, the exile make me sway
Away from such false faith
Oh, Adam, Eve, while you mended,
Eternal unions now end on the slab of heartless courts
And spiral into lost children and broken hearts
That fight each ex-spouse to the death
Tell us how you turned back
Once banished from the garden, how you bore Seth
And how reformed you taught him with every breath
To trust the Master’s manual, and not lying snakes.
Show us again how to love,
How to live fully alive with a renewed purpose
How to be as happy as Dave Ramsey would propose,
But even more, as faith should impose
(c) nyonglema
Renewed
Dark clouds and shadows in the evening sky
Where you expected golden sun
It’s dark again with tonnes of tears to cry
Panic beats your heart, but you’re numb inside
Where warmth had lived before:
Curled arms, elbows pressed to your side
What bent head tear-filled pain hits your eyes?
What can closed eyes see?
Misery piling upon failed tries and woe’s sighs.
What can closed eyes see, if they turn upward
To where many have seen lots
And thereafter moved steadily forward?
Look to the wind blowing a crack through the gloom
And a single ray wriggle through
Letting a smile drawn in light appear in your room
The cold window warms up and takes up new hues
Your arms loose, eyes healing,
The warmth fills you inside as you take up a new you
For darkness was vanquished, and this you knew
But didn’t know-know so
End of day brings in light to you, and with faith renewed
You ponder what you had been told: “He’s with you!”
Not just for part of the pain
But through it all, till tears are dried and the smile is new
Like words floating through space to deeply embrace you
The clouds float away from darkness
And the pounding stops, the flowing tears are growing few
For nothing is so great as to prevail over His tender hug
And His promises are true
Nothing so heavy that following His lead you cannot lug
(c) nyonglema
Class is in session
You thought the learning was over
Chalkboard blowing chalk into the air
Teacher scratching discomfort into your ear
Chalkboard saying things you won’t hear
Class is in session, but the lesson’s eerie
Who brought horror into a classroom story?
Forgive how many times?
Tolerate how many crimes?
The toilet seat meets the dumped socks
In the quagmire of unadulterated ire
Where soccer games and that sucker’s booze
Meet to sink like rugged rocks,
Sink to spark disgust, a horrid fire
Where nobody wins, everything gets loose.
Class is in session, but the lesson’s creepy
Who brought gore into a “love”-filled story?
Keep listening for how long?
Say sorry when I’m not wrong?
The know-it-all yet mostly right attitude
Boils with the demands for attention
And contradicts those moments of little ruse
When the obvious vanishes in in-exactitude:
Hyperboles, irrational outbursts of emotion
Where nobody wins: everybody will lose
The School of Love is in session
“I do” is the entrance exam in grand pomp
Who brought horror into a classroom story?
Or gore into a “love”-filled fairy tale glory?
A cross! A cross! Who drew a cross on the chalkboard
Complete with dying man, scarred with hearts
Crowned in despicable desiccated dead plants?
It’s gross! Yeah, gross! This isn’t the promised reward
That movie with hearts had at the best parts,
When we watched and built all our horizon’s plans!
The chalkboard says He designed it
And tells us how to take it to make it
But why? why is the manual nailed with blood
To Roman torture perfected? Shall we bleed
To get the certificate at the end of this road?
“I do”, the ring, a dress, the suit… a casket?
Buffet, the ball, bouquet, …. a wreath?
Die in order to love?
Die in order to live?
You thought the learning was over
But you just entered the school at Golgotha,
Chalkboard blowing chalk into the air
Laden with a mother’s tears of joy
Teacher scratching discomfort into your ear
As creation is renewed in flesh joined at the altar
Chalkboard saying things you won’t hear
Unless you listen: class is in session. “This is how
You love one another”
(c) nyonglema
Guts over fear
Reality sometimes looks too real to be desirable
As clouds dance with darkness before the sun
A macabre dance that stirs rock and rubble
On every path before eyes that once had fun
The hairs of your neck crane to whisper to you
About chills felt before great battles, great losses;
Shoulders dropped, longing to be hugged anew
As when you scraped your knees while having fun
The whisper like wind dying on distant beaches
Lifts no spirit, but instead freezes passions
Till all is bland amidst the dreary dying fishes
On closed shores where once the tourists had fun
Every path is macabre, so only darkness is desirable
And new life which normally paints in smiles
Must be called anything: clump, parasite, not viable,
Unconscious, killer of wallets, pathway to lost fun
Anything to soften the blow of making it all end
For in an instant fun became burden, and leisure
Became a burden of 2 lines on a stick upending
Your life. Yes anything to take you back to fun
But does calling a lion a goat rob off its mane?
Or does calling a leaf a book rub off its green?
Or does seeking a way back out of the rain
Mean scarring your mind in a quest for fun?
Fear is a horrible counselor when emotions flare
Like alcohol flames upon an aching heart.
Fear will choose death when money gets rare
Fear will choose pain just because the path’s not fun
Fear will have you sell your all, over a mere tear
But hope is nothing like that impostor
Fear will take your heart to dash upon the stairs
But hope it heals your mind bereft of fun
Fear will say you’re too young to be great
Hope says pick up that cross, yes you can
Fear will brim your heart with fermented hate
Hope warms up the pain on a path to fun
Fear says shame will mark you all your life
Hope says “mum”, and loves you in tears and smiles
Hope lays flowers on the right path, plays the fife
As you walk forward smiling, fear nearly gone
Fear says maybe not, do what the politician says
Hope says life will love you in thick and everything
Hope calls you to take that little step that sways
Your life right again, and that of that little human being
Fear leaves. Hope takes over, the clouds can’t cover
The rays sipping through leaves to light up your path
Shoulder raised, not a smile yet for it’s not yet over
But you’re building steps up to a heart in a hearth
Warmed by picking hope over lies and fear intended
To lose you. Reality looks different when you turn
Your eyes beyond expedience to love as it burns
Bright. Light. Fun. Love. New life. New hope. New deeds
With a little life you watch grow. You love into glow.
And it watches in wonder as you grow into all it knows.
(c) nyonglema
DINTS
Divorce, severing hope and mercy from promise
Is a desert of dust-laden rushes of sand:
Not loud, yet sapping health and all peace.
The quiet hides despair's gold-veiled bland
Solution to the problem of evil: Suffer!
(c) Nyonglema
Interesting take: A Homily on Marriage
Never Stop
Lord, You never stop. You pour out blessings without measure To soothe my heart and heal hope's rasure The blessings just flow From icy Everest to shimmering sea, With fireflies lighting the shore with glee My ways You straighten Undeserved, even when all seems lost You're flicker to sun to defeat the frost Lord You never stop, For great are Your ways to those who love To those who trust, and put none above. Lord You never stop, You seek the single, you search the void Ninety nine wait till one hears Your voice Lord You never stop, You call sinners to the feast beyond Where mercy offered makes guilt abscond Lord please never stop, My only hope, my only treasure My life and love, Your Word my pleasure. (c) nyonglema
Special moments
We miss them when bliss seems too elusive, When ailments of a foot, or of an eye Clamor and demand your attention exclusive. What did you overlook? One foot aching means the other foot, And the rest of the body are well. Isn't pain a signal that something is afoot Only in part of the whole? So as the lion gores the deer, and the snake Cracks the bones of that tender cub, Or you notice the quivers and deadly shake As the earth opens to engulf, What are you likely to overlook? Oxygen flowing, the sun shining, humans surviving Horrible catastrophe? The rescue crew, first responders, lion cubs tenderly Fed by their loving mother, A snake living another day, Dead matter feeding the humble beetle? For no evil can exist without prior good. As there's no darkness without prior light There's no pain without prior serenity There's no war without prior peace There's no hate without prior love There's no death without prior life There's no end without a prior start. What did you overlook As you inertly focus on the call to take action, While cursing the rest of you still active? (c) nyonglema
Be #JenEus
Roses catch rays of sunlight in their red gaze, While a butterfly flutters by. Forget the butterfly. A blue jay descends on a ray, its wings ablaze, Throwing shimmering rays the way of the rose, And they play sun ray tennis, Bluebells, and sunflowers too are in that place, As the blue jay sings its song you'd hate to hear On a cold morning as dawn gently tickles your face, Half dreaming, half feeling your lover's arm Not too heavy, just cozy right, Singing lyrics that lull you out of sleep to haste The day away with chores, leaving the heartbeat Behind, and longing to return as the sun kisses the waves. I'm watching sun ray tennis between the blue jay And the rose, thinking about Love. You know, the Love that made the world and the days, Chose a people, and a cross, and who just Is. Yes. He said it Himself as Moses captured the phrase: "I am who is". He doesn't last, He just is, Like eyes locked in romantic embrace. Watching the blue jay, butterfly, rose and sun rays, Dancing their love around the halo they create, Bathed in the majesty of nature's ultimate masterpiece, I wish that all our love, all your love doesn't last, But rather, may this love always be. (C) nyonglema
waghni 