Grab the paper and let it bear the burden
Of the ticking clock looking at your life:
The pendulum swings,
The occasional rings.
Pencil and eraser like a butcher’s knife
Open up your soul as the paper groans
Where is joy? The clock ticks sadly away
But nothing smiles.
Just broken whiles
Laid on the page in slow sullen sway.
The luggage says “Life once was worth it”
Your selection of instances led to hell
And the pendulum swings
To painful mourning.
Erase those parts? How to? Pray tell!
Can the burdened soaked page give answer?
Who cares! Tell me where else I must seek
As all is laid bare.
The page’s blank stare
Neither tells nor hides my failure’s peaks!
Burn! Let the heat steam away the pain
Till the ashes wash away all feeling here
I quit! I quit!
No restart! This is it!
End it all as the ash cracks and smoke’s clear
Master, the tempest is raging?
He’ll master the endless derailment!
When storms come, in silence turn to the Lord
There’s no page too sordid, no moment too bored
No pain he can’t erase
No low he can’t raise
No matter the cost He’ll make sure you’re re-moored
To the purpose that rejoiced at your conception .
Not in wind, nor fire, nor Earth’s contractions
But in the still candle flame
Knees, if they can handle pain,
Whisper: “Lord, give my dark chronicles a new mission:
To serve you alone, till the ticking clock’s cessation.
(c) nyonglema
Tag Archives: pain
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
My country
Is made of strangers, living next to strangers.
Not with them.
Indifference is king, and the king is indifferent.
Tears have taken Oxygen's place in our atmosphere,
And we breathe them in, and exhale stale
Bravura to match King Arthur.
Only, in my country, hearing aids are radios,
And the television is Braille.
The tales fail miserably to push us to excel
As we look round, and our senses are tricked that
That tears are oxygen, and pain is a toy,
Blood is water, and water is abundant.
So our indifference remains king,
And the king isn't different.
(c) nyonglema
Vivre en semble #pretendUnity
Le moustique chante dans ces oreilles pourtant pas endormies,
Qui guettent les pas des ravisseurs qui tour à tour font
La garde. Le silence est tel qu'on peut entendre les fourmis
"…ma reconnaissance au peuple camerounais de m’avoir renouvelé sa confiance…"
Erigés sont les poils des bras à découvert dans ce froid macabre,
La peur a laissé place aux sanglots qui se sont effacés par l'indifférence
Face à ces murs en terre battue … ah ce mot "battu" "battre", "abattre"
"… en prenant des mesures nécessaires pour préserver l’ordre public…"
Battues et coupées du monde, les larmes salées semblent laver le tartre
Comme un plâtre qui se brise laissant la fracture à découvert. Ils saignent.
« … Porte atteinte à notre Constitution… » « … d’être mieux
Associées à la gestion de leurs affaires … » Les lueurs d’espoirs s’éteignent
Avec l’arrivée du soleil. L’odeur d’Hadès parfume la rosée sur les jeunes fusils
« … nous avons maintenu notre cap vers l’émergence. » Il n’est pas 2035.
On se gratte la peau, on nettoie les cils. On boit de l’eau infestée de typhii.
Avec l’arrivée du soleil, l’odeur d’Hadès parfume la rosée sur leur règne
« … continuer dans la paix l’œuvre de construction » La guerre ajuste son masque
Ils se grattent la peau, et ils boivent du Lestac, dehors sous des corps la terre saigne.
(c) nyonglema
Country off Law #Cameroon #freeMiMi
Truth, trough, through.
Health, stealth, felled
Truth brought joy the moment you spoke it
Troughs are where they went to stoke it
Through it they drove fire after spokes hit.
Health was what she had before she spoke it
Stealth was how New Bell made the stroke hit
Felled is the word to describe where hope is
Hope, a strange word,
It carries an upswing like a plane taking off,
Or like an uppercut swinging into your voice box
Either way, nobody raises a finger when truth
Is felled into a trough with thorough stealth
And the health of a nation cannot pull through
Every one stands and watches the vampire eat up
Their neighbour. Turns don’t go round, they stop
Just before the protagonist gets saved by his pop.
The lawyers got it, the teachers got it, the students
Got hit. The gutters are a comfy place to be lonely,
With sewage or not, all were potent (but sordid) portents
The chalkboard got covered with the same lesson like Bart,
“I will not speak against the old man with the darts”
“I will not speak truth, lies about him or his art.”
Silence is a crime. Violence is a crime. Living is like grime
Where slime fills your thoughts, and you can’t expectorate,
Because they expect you to with cocked rifle and unjammed nine
Just before the protagonist gets saved by his pop,
The vampire eats up the pop, and we realise this won’t stop;
Freedom’s Caesar at Pompei’s feet, gasping, gaped, you move to act but,
Breathe, heave, leave
Sigh, cry, die.
(c) nyonglema
Hope #wins
Hope for tomorrow,
Hope that yesterday’s pains were but steps to today
And that its joys were but steps to today.
Hope that it gets better.
It really could be worse, but it does get better.
Hope for tomorrow.
(c) nyonglema
When it all falls down #rise
Darkness will sure come
Like cloudy shadows on trees,
Wind swings in new hope
(c) Nyonglema
Einsamkeit #loneliness
It’s funny how “einsamkeit” (German for loneliness) sounds like “ensemble” (French for together), although both are so opposite one to the other…This is my painting of the most murderous mood a human can ever die into:
Frozen synapses:
Dosing awake, collapses
Into nothingness.
(c) Nyonglema
My son’s tooth #RIPmum #loss #missTheWell
I still remember when you were but members kicking in the air,
Reaching for my hair, my glasses, mouth bare, wide stare
Living life to the full without a fear, and very little care:
Your empty stomach, full diapers, or when dada or mum’s not there.
Yes, your gums gleamed for the future white to grow there,
And the first push through brought your mum-mum to crazy cheer,
And brought you and gramma and mum to some hospital chair,
To tend a fever…shame most of these times I was on foreign stairs.
The pictures brought me joy too, and I showed each peer,
Like “Check that out, the teeth are showing” to their blank stare
Of non-understanding, or about-to-jeer, or I-don’t care.
But that little trophy was mine and mine to carry everywhere!
Then they multiplied: more incisors premolars and each year
There was more to show in your mouth than in some trade fairs!
We were proud, but I bet as high as your head was your care
For the diamonds pushing through your gums as if fore’er.
But now I can feel the stab of the salty streak of each tear
That poured out as four years later the incisive pioneer
Lost its hold and you panicked and at that time we weren’t there
To guide you on this change that to you was a great scare.
But but how could you have…but but….Mummy….
How could I have known that things strong one day leave?
How could I have known that this time it wasn’t a pet peeve
And that that last heave for breath is the last you’d give?
How could I have known that so soon we would all have to grieve?
You were decisive and strong, standing through the toughest
And the roughest weather you brushed off your body’s surface,
And put on a warm face, smiled to heal the pain in my sore nest
Where the eggs of hope were being infested by hornets.
Mummy…
Like my little boy living life not thinking about the whites,
I loved deep but saying “I love you” was an Isaac sacrifice,
And by your bier, staring through the glass at shut made-up eyes,
I’m saying “I love you” as if to thaw your face and skin of ice.
(c) Nyonglema
Pain #pain #humility #compassion
A stab straight to the heart,
A flicker of hope gone away,
Forever present, a cancer on your skin,
In the bones or other frail tissues,
Coming to you when you least expect;
In every respect your closest companion.
In everyday it plays a part,
Like a tax you owe, you must pay!
Burden on your shoulder, a fragile kin,
Engendered from salient issues.
A kin you know you can’t neglect,
‘Cos though unpleasant, must be in the union.
Yes, though it is in your skin a wart,
A messenger teaching you to apprecia’e
The un-corrupted areas of skin,
To keep those bubbling insults in disuse.
Instead look at what good’s left, and delect
In the life-learning process; an important pinion.
You run away, you waste your millions,
No escape, you are the next to infect.
Water fills your failing sinews,
He’s stuck with you, no fleeing!
Your closest companion on everyday,
When you least expect he is taking part.
(c) Nyonglema
waghni 