Soft the silky sheath in which God clothed your bones,
And sweet the smooth rich notes of your vocal tones
Whose content muses seek.
Oh! My heartbeat’s at its peak
When you’re near with your personality of scones.
(c) Nyonglema
Soft the silky sheath in which God clothed your bones,
And sweet the smooth rich notes of your vocal tones
Whose content muses seek.
Oh! My heartbeat’s at its peak
When you’re near with your personality of scones.
(c) Nyonglema
I shut my eyes on Her twisted face,
All writhed in sorrow, my pain in Her innermost.
All hopes dead, an end closing in.
Slowly, I closed my heavy eyelids,
Rest I must; rest this divine pottery
Bathed in years of loving teardrops, Her sorrow cutting my innermost.
I glanced back at Joy,
Saw Him retreating stealthily, suavely fleeing;
I called to Him, but fixed His bearing was:
Home with me He would; He went ahead,
Leaving those eyes I had wiped flooded, but drying up.
Then She broke my thoughts, uttered Her thought.
And how I wished I could hear that conjecture by
Her now mellifluous voice; before I would have used cotton
To spare my ear Her nagging torture.
Then I looked back at Memory.
He sat on an old rock, most eruditely clad,
Told me of my siblings, peeps, my parents,
Slowly unfolded the reel of tears and smiles,
Stones I had kicked, stumbles dotting the pages;
My first beard, first girl, first beer;
This whole learning process as it was,
As it slowly neared its end.
Told of 14 years of school (bookworming)
The pain of seeing no further than my arm:
A marking handicap branded on me.
He told me of Her, how She groomed me,
Before and after I was Her groom.
His eloquence so captivated me,
I suddenly came back, my eyes shutting.
I felt some dying shocks on my thorax.
They must have been trying to re-establish the life distributor.
Again, I saw Her face, cupped in her hands
Like no pain, horror, sorrow
Could violate the barrier created.
The look in Her eye told me She knew;
She knew what I knew: solace would not come.
She read my goodbye and I dove;
Uwu and Mafou and granddad stood waiting,
Arms open, received the escapee,
As medics shocked the inanimate flesh on the bed
And my shut eyelids took me far off; home,
With Memory, Joy, Uwu and Mafou
Telling me of it all.
(c) Nyonglema
I’m the anchor chain plunging into the deep,
Summoned by the sombre sea bed, taut and steep.
I’m the anchor chain torn between the deep and the ship,
Serving both the anchor digging the sea weeds,
And the ship ripping me off the anchor’s hold in its speed glee.
I’m problem land, trapped between two owners;
One person’s shouting curses, the other would feed the coroner.
I’m problem land. Remember the glorious days past
With daisies and morning glories? It’s over! Gun blasts
Have let loose blood baths to mar that beauty too fast!
I’m a mule, would you bet millions I’m horse or donkey?
Am I part of The Plan or mistaken fall out of a monkey?
I’m both! Let no war marr my existence.
Let horse hate donkey, but here must both parents’ love have residence,
In this heart two hearts made.
( c) Nyonglema
From far away past where silent orbs
Danced to rhythms of unknown forces forging
Newer niches in cloud then soil then rock,
Smouldering, sizzling silently as time tic toc
Ebbed away, watching life on some lifeless rock surging,
To this day when we dance to the rhythm of Forbes,
The moon and sun in divine love urging
Have danced about the earth: light source upon a rock,
Bringing life to earth when the sullen clock
Calls out the grim owl, vile wolf, and sturdy sturgeon
Through the silent night nobody else disturbs,
Locked in eternal enthralment, watching the dark dungeon
Earth would be but for the sun- or moonlight it absorbs.
Moonlight from sunlight like new groom and virgin
Locked in an embrace older than Eden’s first baulk,
But sealed forever to work on this blue rock;
Bringing light to life on earth at dawn then dusk, merging
Efforts: sun casts its beams on daytime suburbs
But when the earth turns as if to shun its scourging,
That age old mission bound to fail as dusk struck
Finds new life in the passive glitter on that battered rock,
The partner playing its part, for so it was from the first forging.
From far away past, as far back as the silent space orbs,
The sun and moon in sublime love urging.
Have danced about and cast shadows out of this rock
And so it should be, for when one’s gone and you lose the rock
Foundation of the union, then is there but darkness and dirge in
The picture, and the survivor is just a lifeless rock listening for hope in the orbs.
(c)Nyonglema
Count your blessings
Hit the mark more often
Reading, Writing, Hearing and Tasting the Art of Life
When reluctance gives in to the urge of expression....