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: rebirth
Shooting your foot #Cameroon
I told him exactly the same as I’m telling you now:
The gun you point at your people is a gun you point
At your pupil, or at your pupils, or through a peephole
Into a future with LED lights lining trees capturing
Sunlight, and lightning, a future enlightened
By the lightness of the smiles of generations to come
A peephole looking back at the nozzle of a barrel.
I knew he wouldn’t listen, for without the ash splattered
Against my mane wisdom cannot be part of my game.
All their epithelia are the same, waiting for epitaphs
Epilogue to tales where epic lies dominate photographs
Of instants of truth, painful truth….like the peephole
And the barrel, and they’ve seen it all, the seed to the tree
The stream to the river, the whole range of our history
I knew he wouldn’t listen, nor read, nor taste of my sweat,
But maybe my blood, so I painted myself like the others
Vehement in thoughts dancing entrapped in cages of fear
Where the lines on the 60 leaves plane-leaved exercise book
Jump off the page where you jotted your deepest hopes for
Change, change into pain, twist your arms and pull your fingers
Around them. They turn into metal, and you’re looking out,
Wishing for a desk, a pen, but not even a toilet for your rear’s near.
But I know He will listen. He doesn’t read these words
He feels them. He sees my prayer that we’d stop crowding Peter’s
Waiting room: the logistics department had to order new magazines,
About cars, about medicine about emptying magazines on citizens,
To accommodate the throng waiting for their lift to the final
Destination: Heaven or Hell. The water dispenser needs refilling,
This place wasn’t designed for such affluence…well there was Noah,
Or better still his time, but there was enough notice for facilities
To be put in place. Not this time…but I know He listens.
So, they told him exactly as I tell you now:
When words can save the souls of many,
Lay Guns to rest by Pride’s old body
And dare to save another’s soul today
For face to face mountains all decay.
(c) nyonglema
waghni 