Tag Archives: pain

fear

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

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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

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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

love

Darkness in my Heart #heartbreak #AES #power #love #tragedy

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A.E.S has done it again!

I mean, I’ve been sitting and thinking

Thoughts so vain, waiting. Waiting

For the bulbs to flicker then “ding”

With bright white light once again.

 

A few minutes before the TV roared

In the Bernabeu and I watched: no blinking!

Each shot, each trickery of their inking

As with art they had my heart rising then sinking:

Champions League night baby! Nobody bored!

 

And the lights were white alive

But the whir of electrons slowly seeping

Through laden wires didn’t affect my skipping

Ad arrhythmia as victory played the evil Imp in

This story: appearing then dipping into its hive.

 

Yes! the bright lights were on yet ignored

And like the well with its honey for our drinking

Ignored till without warning or tin bell ringing

Darkness rushed in to seize our wishes and hoping

And my love was gone; leaving my heart all scoured.

 

(c) Nyonglema

sadness

African Seed

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Terror lurks in the darkened eyes of a growing child

As each minute she dips into the shrieks from her mama, 25;

Marked dad curled in silence on the ground, wanting life,

Marked by another man who’d barely seen seasons 25.

  

She recalls how daddy cried out and fell silent to the ground.

Mum recoiled at many punches many staunch “men” had found.

She was 4 back then, and saw as men 12-year olds from out of town

As they ripped her mama’s clothes…she closes her eyes, counting each heart pound.

  

She recalls that red stream that slithered to her hidden corner

Soaking her skirt; soaking in hurt like staring at the sun’s corona.

Outside guns rattled, taking out all who could mourn her.

Lonely, the tears trickled down slowly, spelling “Were’t I wasn’t born, Ah!”

  

Slowly the tears trickled down that lonely jaw…

“Jane”, cried the professor, “What’s the result of this mixture?”

Jane knew not what was before, she stood there distraught.

She wishes she could do better, but her past sticks in the picture.

  

(c) Nyonglema

fear

HOME (2007)

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Home’s laughter and joy, where good thoughts mature;
Home’s water for life, and without colour or odour;
Home makes eyes water, but beneath blesses each smile.
Not home the seat of vile yoke-wielders Satan couldn’t beguile.
Not home despair growing from the tree you didn’t help spawn.
What’s home when your peers relish as sadness does you a turn?
No! Not home if I can’t rest at night and wish the morrow.

Home’s children in the present hopeful and eyes turned to the future;
Home’s elders drawing the past to give the present’s pleasant contour;
Home’s youths building the future with the puerile and senile,
All hand in hand lifting Home higher in each while.
Not home hearts buckling under unfulfilled dreams, hearts that yearn!
What’s home if children’s present shames elders’ past, and in turn
Home’s youths’ future condemns their very life so hollow?

Home’s working for your bread and to your produce more manure;
Home’s doing what you crave and in your grave be happy manure.
Home’s scorn for the hedonists, respect for the agile.
Not home the heart-tearing feeling of drying the Nile!
Not home where your greatest achievements meet the urn!
What’s home when greater achievements are mere kindergarten turns?
No! Not home my teary eye sharing in my fellowmen’s sorrow!

Home’s being satisfied that all one needs is secure;
Home’s not wants achieved, but necessities from the store;
Home’s absence of frustration at getting blamed your job’s an empty vial
Because home didn’t offer the tools you needed, though they’re there all the while!
Not home when the doctor gets blamed that the propellers don’t turn;
What’s home when the shoe mender mends body burns?
No! Not home a place where squares fit circles in a mentality so shallow.

There was home in my heart as TV waves my growing heart would lure.
Homewards, I’d think, into prospects of rejoicing in a reality so pure;
Reality, home to opportunities, possibilities: me and my dreams down the aisle,
With home’s resources building a mighty Rome in the eyes of a little child.
That was home as my blood pumped and I awaited my turn
To give home all my feeble self could afford. All I could learn
As age called was broken dreams, and the pain of a morose morrow.

(c) Nyonglema Pisoh