Tag Archives: pain

sadness

The Palm Tree Seed #blackSheep #uglyDuckling #rejected

Leave a comment

There it lay lazily in a sea of others like itself;
Well, in most things like itself,
For they all had that haggard carelessly drawn spherical shape,
Showered with burning brown, red and yellow,
And the dark hats, a vestige of parenthood,
Made them look like brothers.

But it just didn’t look the same!
The paleness plaguing its pelt,
The gayness around seemed to stay off it,
Though the concentration of joy and beauty around
Should have diffused directly through
The fibrous coat, to hit the core;
It just didn’t fit!

Could it be a fall-out of the prejudicial lighting,
Which threw shades through each kernel’s space
From the dim candle lighting up the room’s face,
Giving the weird spheres flickering weirder airs?
No. It was just that this horrid sight
Was wrought by warms eating right through its coat
Causing decay: poor thing.

(c) Nyonglema

love

Rhum #loveLost

Leave a comment

I just stumbled on this piece I wrote way back in high school and would like to share with you. It’s about the throes of a young man in a sweet relationship. Of course, he takes his babe for granted, not letting her know what’s going on below, and she gets snatched up by another. Hopefully, most are strong enough not to follow our friend here in his downward spiral…

 

I gave my heart away
Would have sworn it was not for a day
Here I am bathed in tears.
Yes it was a lot better in those years
Together hand in hand, shunning peers

What went wrong?

Chatting happily about that song,
Or about the latest Jan de Bont,
Hearts melded like metal.
Long I though it was wattle
And daub we had, what a bite from a rattle!

Remember those moments?

Smiling, laughing, running even in torments
To the flicks or home, green bills or no cents!

Even back home,

Tender caresses, my hand in that hair,
The mass of ebony enchanting strands, showing care
Kisses speaking our hearts,
Your skin flowing like malt.

Honey, cool times we had

You are a miracle halo!
Should have spoken earlier, but lo,
The sky’s getting wearier. But woe
Was bound to come!
And so was born regret: rhum.

My heart is gone, all left’s rhum,

Alcohol till life’s dusk.

(c) Nyonglema

 

I can hear the rhum gulps at each drop down into the abyss…..

love

Last sight #supportWidows #supportWidowers

Leave a comment

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

surprise

Tired #workDay #9to5 #labour #job #fatigue

Leave a comment

Pins are pricking my poor body;
It’s night and the owls are gone.
The roar of horsepower have replaced their song,
And night is now a lonely toddy.

8 hours on farming my payroll eagerly,
With sweat and tear; each minute is scarce.
So rushing around the hive, looking for my fares
I don’t feel pins pushing into my day’s load stealthily.

As the night crawls in, and the boss calls out;
And the office shrinks, and the lights go out,
And the files pile up, and litter sleeps about,
My face sinks as this routine goes day-in day-out.

Don’t think wrong, my love’s my job;
But just like Job asking the Maker about woes,
I scratch my pain, stretch my back and nurse my throes,
And watch these pins sinking in like desert drops.

At last at home, lying on a couch to think
And scribble my thoughts in a big blot of ink,
I start to feel the pins relish as they sink
The pain of fatigue into each one of my limbs.

(c) Nyonglema

fear

Fading Smoke #collateralDamage #stopWar #peace #bombs

Leave a comment

I wave my blistered hand before my bleeding face,
Waving gunpowder smoke and blood fumes in the mist
To see the survivors, to see hope.
But all I see is crushed bones and leaking skulls;
All around the steaming tarmac lie lifeless lads,
Lost lives fill the air with more choking tears.
But we can’t cry now!
“Run! Run! Before they cast another bomb on us!”
I’m on my feet, staggering forward like an alcohol keg,
Surprised to be running alone to the porous camp shelter;
Oblivious to pain, oblivious to care, I stagger on.
Hoping to get my weapon and answer their fire.

It is then it dawns like a wooden blow on me:
I’m no soldier; they aren’t either!
Infant body parts entangled with women and men’s blood
Litter the town square, and I’m staring at the military shelter:
A wooden icecream stand with holes on the whole frame,
And blood , and burnt flesh reeking in the foetid smoke;
And… I break into tears.

(c) Nyonglema

love

I Am #divorce #brokenHome #cheat #alimony #home

Leave a comment

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

fear

The other side of Freedom #theOtherView #EvilBegetsEvil

Leave a comment

They said they loved me.
Then, the metal beasts came, soaring over me
Heaping dust and blood on our city streets,
As their lethal load hit like rain sheets.

I watched their love puncture the city walls
And sever the sinews off the boy and his ball
Leaving the mother crying for her son, then his dad
Till her tears meant nothing in the wailing myriad.

I saw the hate build with each blood drop
Drawn from the soldiers and innocent. Drop
For drop, survivors intend revenge upon this love shown:
This false love which spurs only hate till we’re all gone.

(c) Nyonglema

This is a view from the other side of fanatism. Taking more weapons to the Middle East will only push more bereaved honest Muslims in despair to take up arms to avenge their lost ones: in that state where all is lost, the fanatics find fodder for their ideas, and turn these honest citizens into murderous terrorists. There has to be another way. A politician suggested diplomacy and negotiations. May another way be found, for bloodshed will only lead to more bloodshed. May the souls lost in the wars on both sides R.I.P.

love

Whispers in the Night #supportWidows #supportWidowers

Leave a comment

This is a poem I submitted as a submission to a competition on Poetry Soup. The idea was to write lyrics to the instrumental Life story by Peter White. Maybe you’ll hear me sing to this soon :-). But you go ahead, have some fun with the words, and share to your friends. Who knows, this could be your The Voice moment.


Whispers in the night, longing for your ears
To drown every fear
But the sorrow sleeps with me tonight.


Whispers in the night, saying a bitter prayer,
Gone the summer cheer,
Only cold snow fills me deep inside.


Remembering the fun-filled laughter, the dreams we shared;
Together we made it: built that home of kids and bricks.


Remembering the hurtful wards, the chemo and meds,
That instant you were mine, then reality killed me: us was history.


Whispers in the night, saying our favorite prayers
Seeing you everywhere
Your smell still lives painfully in this house


Whispers in the night: “Oh why not a few more years?”
Still so much to share!
Nobody to hug and care for life!


Remembering the fun-filled laughter, the dreams we shared
Together we made it: built that home of kids and bricks.


Remembering the hurtful wards, the chemo and meds,
That instant you were mine, then reality killed me: us was history.


(c) Nyonglema

fear

The Irony of the Red Smiling Cyclops #nuun #nassara #genocide #isis

Leave a comment

It appeared on the doorpost as a Cyclop’s smiley face
For some Cyclops WhatsApp icon, but red-themed application
Yes gruesome red, in contrast to the expectation
You would get from a smiley face, even for a Cyclops.
It quizzed my curiosity and I dug further on Google’s interface.

It appeared on the search page as the queen Isis,
Long told in Hieroglyphics, Cyrillic and Roman alphabet,
Patroness, mother, queen, blessings with love met,
But unlike these grim Arabic script in an ominous logo,
And tales of death, pain littered with deeper crises

It told of “nuun”, 14th letter of a blessed script
In which many beautiful and wise thoughts found life,
A letter which told of blessing and not of strife
Being in a position multiple of seven, a number blessed
By God Himself when he Earth and Heaven in 7 breaths whipped

It told of the Magen David, a shining star, which should be a good thing
Only that it brings memories of gaunt bodies piled in trucks
And human experimentation, and as history at our door knocks
And Isis or Isil opens to let in what we dread most
“Nuun” is stuck in my iris with pain and scary sting.

For I have seen the blank stare of heads painting in red drips the pickets
And Leonidas’ 300-style gore re-enacted in modern city streets
As heads are divorced from bodies and all around are scared heartbeats
For even bloodied child clothes cover head-less bodies,
As Christians are beheaded like one would roast crickets.

It brings back memories of my ancestors up in the Samba regions,
Fleeing the harsh choice given to them by the jihadists:
To adorn the village picket or join the cause of the Islamist,
Forced to create a third choice, which was to leave their homes,
Friends and family to pseudo-Islam or lurid lethal lesions.

Is it that time again for Iraqi Christians?
Shall the world once again watch the Red Indians’,Tutsis’, and Jews’
Story take gruesome form and hack through human sinews?
How many litres of innocent blood, and kilogrammes of hacked human flesh
Are needed to realise the vanity in the life of Homo sapiens?

(c) Nyonglema

anger

The gods are passing

Leave a comment

Picture this: the sun engraving sweat streaks

On your sizzling skin, stinging your eyes

As the humid heat hits your cheeks

Painting pain all over your 37°C-and-rising

Body stuck in the thick traffic like on all weeks

Barely breathing, headed home from the day’s trials.

 

And a-blaring come crowding the air those sirens:

The horns from cars speeding as if to mock

Our stillness. The cops with walkie-talkies pulling reins

On all who wish the way home were shorter:

“Order!” “wait!” The horns go from shrill – and since

There’s “order” – to barytone peace while we still sweat.

 

The sun’s still engraving its streaks on me

The heat still heating my sorry cheeks

This metallic cage stuck amongst so many

Others like it, ordered to stop for the glorious horns,

Is starting to feel like a microwave oven to me.

But what can I do? The gods were passing.

 

(c) Nyonglema