"One day you'll fall in love" I heard the knife stab my ear drums For that word had wheels with sturdy spokes And rolled away from the bleeding guillotine With the hearts it had stolen, then broken. Romeo fell up the balcony while the bats Roamed the sky, catching the bugs in his Poetry. The melody cast a shadow at Juliet's Door and with his head over her heels, Her heart was gripped by the lyrics Pouring into the secrecy of that instant. The crickets sang the background, and Everything heaven seemed to hang in the air, The breeze waltzed her hair, her dress Throwing shimmers to enthralled Romeo: Never to part, they'll live the ever after ... Romeo's dead, then fall Juliet. Over and over the Poison and the Dagger Start as toddler Egos, wanting what they want And nothing else. Led by the fear of Being on an island, we seek to put the Other in a cage, and have them lark Out our favorite songs to the rising Sun, with pretty feathers, as pretty As the bars that we have offered them To look out through. Who wants to be alone? So Romeo dared choose the suicide of women, And Juliet that of men, each conquering fear of Their worst death to defeat their worst fear, For who wants to be alone? Maybe it wasn't love after all? Maybe the judges gavelling unknowing children To a future of multiple homes, fathers and mothers Or single homes, with guns drawn across the parapet Aren't breaking love, but something else? Maybe I shouldn't fear the word as I've been taught By decades of soap operas, movies, stories And by this dog-eared blue and read Oxford dictionary. Maybe we're all wrong to think when we own A person, we are doing it for Love? Maybe love is giving it all, and even more Till we have no more blood to pour? Maybe Love has given it all, and even more, So we know how to love our neighbour? (c) nyonglema
Tag Archives: love
My son is 10
Only yesterday you put your fingers in my eyes As if to dot them, to make them more perfect for you. Today, you cross my Ts and with ink, dot my i's For our conversations have got richer with each day And as I recall cradling you to sleep with many tries For you would stare, looking for everything new In the living room, where you and I crawled like spies, Discovering every nook, every cranny, every day, I relish you now, on your way to start your own fires, On your way to be the spirit that brings out something new, On your way to reach mine, then peak at a higher spire On your way to change the world, your way. (c) nyonglema
I chose you #confined
I chose you over surfing waves in the middle of there. Here I stare into your eyes, like the paint smiling At this magical moment. Lavender hovers between us Like a connection heart to heart. I'm hung on your Words. Now I hold you, as the bars stay shut, the bars Shudder at RNA code, and the restaurants cower. All the doors are shut, so I shut our door and hold you. I chose you. You chose me. (c) nyonglema
Candle in the wind
They are quite unpredictable like funeral tears.
The casket weighs down on a metallic stand in
The middle of the compound. The building
Is empty, the heart is empty, the palm fronds
Over this brownish soil staining my shoes
Have seen tears trickle in silence down faces.
The wind tries to snuff out the wick, but it resists.
You clung to the breath gushing out your throat,
Pulled by the cloaked reaper, but eventually it's
Gone. You've seen tears trickle down wrinkled
And smooth faces. You've consoled and cried,
With arms tight around a wounded shoulder.
Then, the breath soothed in melodic syllables.
You're clinging to the wind, the candle resists.
But the gusts gush too strong, the flame bends to
Mourn. The leaves rustle on the acacia tree,
The leaves rustle on the mango tree, The leaves
Pause to mourn. It wasn't the reaper calling.
A bearded Jew picks you up like a prom date,
His halo catching the pearls of your white dress.
The fiery chariot makes your half smile shine, as you
Look back at the tears to come, and say one last prayer.
But the gusts really gush too strong on the wick,
And the flames disappear to leave darkness.
You're gone.
We're torn.
We reach for the wick, but notice the flame still
Burns. The flame resists, our tears cannot.
Our fears cannot.
A fiery chariot
Took you away to a better place, but we are in
A bad place. We wanted to hear your voice,
We wanted to hold you, not some wax and wick in wind.
We wanted to own you, but life is for God's glory
And glory is unpredictable like a candle in the wind
(c) nyonglema
Heal
Why would you smile at a stranger at the store?
This morning the cat wrecked her pristine couch and
Gouged with lion claws the eyes of her nascent smiles.
Her son got the cue and stood in the path of a passing flu
That knocked him out of his bed onto a sick one
Where temperatures rose and fell to the sound of
The neighbour complaining about the ball that wrecked a
Window. Yesterday, her boys launched a satellite
Off course that took the pieces of glass to the trash.
Why would you smile at the stranger at the store?
Because sometimes,
That all she's got,
It's all she's got.
(c) nyonglema
To Live
The drops of rain piano on the bars of my window
Where I can see the hide and seek game sun and rain
Play; the clouds laugh in silver rays like joyous waterfalls:
Birds love waterfalls. They polka the sky and tweet
Their cares away to the gentle wind under their wings.
Nature just opened its eyes to smile on the eternity
Of me, the sun, the rain, the clouds, the wind, the birds,
And the rest of restless creation soaking in the beautiful
Predicament of being alive for just this brief while
And yet relishing the divinity and love in every moment of it.
(c) nyonglema
Happy Birthday mum by Meuna (7 yr old)
Happy birthday Mums, I wish you more years.
Mums, grow.
But I am scared of when you die.
I know it is part of life
(c) meuna
My secret is that:
Nobody knows that I died a long time ago.
But she would have known,
Even from the slab at Melen.
She just slept.
She never liked hard surfaces,
Preferring the 6 cushion couch
Of red yellow and orange circles of my childhood.
I still remember the watery smells that danced the Burlesque
Of firefly magic from Lake Wum on my childhood days.
The chairs sat under a family of 20 with 1 mother.
Yes, same chairs followed us to Yaoundé, where
She'd start the TV shows with me and then slip away.
Then I like a bad dream would slowly touch her skin awake:
"Mum you should go to bed now".
The show was over.
She would rise then go to sleep.
In a 6-foot hole in Baligham.
(c) nyonglema
My little flower #love
Down by the shore of city life, I found my little flower:
White lily shining fragrance the size of the Eiffel tower.
Unexpected the feeling of finding beauty right here,
Down by the shore of the rush of life, on the pier.
Down I stooped and scooped the softly petals,
And a whiff of joy made my feeble heart unsettle
The petals so brave were not the frail of despair
But showed the strength of surviving hostile care.
The sepals seemed to have done their fair share,
Cradling the white and shunning life's scares.
Their green sang odes to my heart's singing strings,
Like the rebirth as deep winter announces spring
By the shore of city life, I held the peduncle
And tucked it into my tangled hair's crunkles.
"Journey with me through all of life's worst despair,
My little flower, through life, surviving hostile care"
(c) nyonglema
9
9 is like something uncompleted, but with a tinge of very special.
If God multiplied Himself, there would be 9 of Him.
It could have taken 9 wise men to avoid Herod's whim
And those 3 little pigs if nine were quite the team.
9 is like something still being perfected, but already very Godlike
Like the 9 lives of a cat, which signifies eternity
Or my will for the whole nine yards with you with me
Or me on cloud nine at your breath forming "sweety"
9 melts the soul, mends the heart, and lifts the mind to new
Planes like you, always dressed to the nines,
Or me caught for nine years like wheel and spline
In the magic of your curves, thoughts and mind.
My golden adorned finger still sings the joys of December,
And memories flutter around my mind like butterflies amber
Probing the nectar from a pollen filled field, smiling as they taste
The joys of being you, and near you. 13 years seems like the haste
Of a boy to the Christmas tree, but it's not toy-time yet,
It's just a celebration of you and me, when hearts met
Lips formed forever, and hands sealed like cymbals
And the Seraphins played along as 9 years are just a symbol
To hold firm the objective in a beautiful God-wrought gimbal.
(c) nyonglema
waghni 