Light a fire upon the raging fire?
The wood shudders and writhes in pain
As fumes scoff at the deadly ire
Dancing about the dying twig, and it's plain:
Why add more fire to fire?
Seventy seven times seven is huge,
But sometimes barely sufficient to quell,
For forgiveness of the Scrooge
Is the silence of a storm-tossed city bell;
But this would cull the deluge:
(For the twig is now bent over,
Both sides seeking trust in combustibles,
The dance of shadows now groovier
Human life precious, now just expendable,
From a spark to a supernova)
That we had that mustard seed!
Barely perceptible, yet full of potential
Calling us eagerly to heed
The Master laying bare the essentials:
Grow faith, reach the mustard seed,
Hold the cycle of hate at bay!
With one act of kindness, a precious flower
Growing in the concrete today
Is the start of the end of destruction's power
Mustard seed. Mustard tree. Today.
(c) nyonglema
Tag Archives: War
What could have been?
What if the presidents cared? They said victory was imminent. With evil intent, with barrel on fatigue, Beads on mud-caked scentent string, Leaves so scared they're now silent, Trees hearing the slaughter of a pig, While life goes on in the battle ring. Few years back there was a mountain Where silicon budded genius software jigs. Yet eyes were closed on everything. Where were those billions you're now bent Over backwards to send over leagues To warring factions wearing hope thin? Yeah! What if the presidents cared? My people die for lack of wisdom. Life is nothing but an excuse to loot. Life is nothing but dirt to be trampled Upon when upside down is the kingdom, Wishing to have a neck under a boot As a solution to pain, Wishing that ample Resources can paint the soil crimson. Did you care when they dropped out? Did you bear those same veins on your temple When hunger ravaged the mother's bossom? Where were the millions to soothe And bring hope and make nimble? How many books did you garrison? How many teachers did you arm? How many laboratories have you loaded With new tech to break them out the prison? For cultures have marched out of harm By focusing on growth not the goading. So the victory still seems imminent, With evil intent, with barrel on fatigue The kids out of school, the schools on fire, Leaves so scared, they all went silent, Trees hearing the slaughters on the hills, While you fuel the hateful mire. (c) nyonglema
Where is Ambazonia?
Where the grass grows in zig-zags, and the trees
Planted in rows, lift their weight to offer to God.
Where the pavements long for walking, and the
Buildings ache to breathe, choked in silence.
Where the hearts beat to the rhythm of barrel drums,
And the ears listen for smoke, blood, and laughter
Where the buildings pick up circular pieces to hide
Their Dalmatian-themed painting of despair and calibres
Where brother kills brother for dialog to be stifled;
Where words are stabbed with the bayonet and hope gets rifled.
Where once great minds spoke English, planned futures,
And debated all the various features of said futures.
Where once you lived, and smiled, and laughed to care,
But now duck and shiver, bleeding and gasping for air.
(c) nyonglema
Because colonisation
The wheels on the bus fight round and round
Round the ground, stones around,
The wheels on the bus, have gone aground
In holes in the town.
The driver of the bus says move on back,
Far to the back, far to the back,
The driver of the bus stays in his shack
While sons and moms drown
The baby on the bus goes where'd I go?
Where's that hope? Where's that road?
The baby on the bus thinks Paris stole those
While leaders put on a frown
The mummy on the bus goes France did this
France did this, In the 1960s
The mummy on the bus says France did this,
While leaders steal her gown.
The wheels on the bus have left the ground,
Go round and round, round and round,
The wheels on the bus go off road guards
And starts plunging down.
(c) nyonglema
They steal our resources #DonQuixote
What stories were you told as a kid? Bedtime stories?
The wall whispers to me "You'll be nothing!
It's been rigged, see, the Earth is being pulled off
To show what lies beneath, and "They"
Want a crater beneath that."
"They" sounds like a strange name for anybody.
I hear "They" colonised African countries ,
Then "They" took all the resources,
Then "They" kept Africa under 1 dollar.
"They" have power.
While "We" pilfer the poor's taxes,
Build roads in an Oculus Rift, "We"
Mass-murder those who think different,
Take off those brains so all stop thinking,
Take off the teachers, the doctors,
Lest one takes a needle to stitch one back together.
"They" tell us what to do, and not wanting our welfare
Give "We" loans, and aid, and technology, and more
Well "They" want what's in our soil,
And "We" sell it to them.
Only you can't complain when you sell something can you?
Like Mugabe seizing lands traded for weapons or more
Or Africans asking the return of their wares' descendants,
Or at least some reparation, for the low price got on
Their brothers: some sort of bonus for good performance?
So you get to be paid double, and get back what you sold?
When I hear that wall whispering, I think of the poem
Dad told me to recite: "Mr Nobody" written by nobody.
I guess it's easier to swing your sword at virtual windmills
Than at yourself when you are the source of all the trouble
And "We" still pilfer everything we own,
Thinking what we own are rocks beneath the Earth,
While the children are either buried in those rocks,
Or their education forgotten till all actually become rocks.
(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
The dog ate the baby #Cameroon
Daddy hears the baby cry, but he's on his phone
Flipboard's louder than Crowder, and Facebook,
Oh, faces booked with tags look good to mum
The tears scatter across the molecules of the room,
But the care resonates with nothing.
But the dog, it usually plays with the baby,
Licks its pretty plump face, and jumps around.
Daddy thinks this could work, this could
Be the dam to the distracting noise of need.
Off you go doggy, off your chain, be dad and mum
To the ball of pain confused in its crib.
And off it went, off its chain, past dad and mum,
No Flipboard article or Facebook stream could
Deter it from its goal. For you see, it couldn't hear
the baby's cry from dad's and mum's absence:
The grumbling of its stomach bacteria was louder,
Maybe the smell of a wounded infant had reached
Their empty abode? Maybe this was their chance?
Maybe they could shut this best friend's will,
And make everything silent again?
Daddy hears the baby cry, but he's on his phone
Flipboard's louder than Crowder, and Facebook,
Oh, faces booked with tags look good to mum
The blood scatters across the molecules of the room,
But the care resonates with nothing.
(c) nyonglema
It burns not…#cameroon
They said.Â
Boko Haram just killed 17 Cameroonians in the Far North
Boko Haram's attack just foiled in the North
Two innocent people kidnapped in the AdamawaÂ
Successful repulsion of incursion in the East
Ghost towns dominate in the North West
Blood bath on both sides in the South WestÂ
Ransoms requested in the West
And since Littoral, Centre and South are not in the pot
We can conclude that all is ok; the fire is not that hot.Â
(c) nyonglema
Watering cans #cameroon #bir #kamikaze
It’s a big question in my mind how much liquid earth can take?Â
Like if I were to empty litres upon the barren ground of caked
Desert, when does it overflow to stop my ambition of a lake?Â
Lakes are fun to be on: the waterjet splashes speed soaring,Â
The arms windmill to move you splashing, speeding, boring
Through the water, laughing, while fishes stare at nothing
Nothing is what the media said was poured on the groundÂ
But I saw the litres ambition to be more than gunpowder sound,Â
And watering cans spilled their contents on watering can mounds
And in the mound it’s about 5 litres a-piece, slowly ebbing gross.
Blood has a thing for making my stomach curl, and loss
Has a thing for making my eyes unfurl. Both are plain gross.Â
Gross lies in the media proliferating gross lies to the public,Â
While watering cans….Did I just call humans farming objects?Â
Like we’re growing food for some starving child in our republic?Â
My republic? No a human with holes watering the ground won’tÂ
Grow any food. Won’t heal any wounds. Won’t go out hunt,Â
Or caress a little kid’s cheek. But guns, guns, they’re totally blunt,Â
About causing blunt trauma to a nation seeking growth overall.Â
You can’t silence these cats once you set the nips on your garden wall
And they hang around, they multiply and make humans lamentation walls.Â
The wall of ego brings watering cans. The porous soil is tired.Â
Is the ambition to make a lake? Is the ambition for war to retire?Â
We’ll maybe never know, and till then deserts, blood, heaps, fire.
(c) nyonglema
Talking with bullets? Lose-Lose #Cameroon
It was easier before:
The cock crowed, Jesus turned, the tears flowed
The cock crowed, I turned, and the shower flowed
The cock crowed, luck turned, and tears flowed.
Easy solutions were easy to get while things were easy
But nine stitches rhyme with nine lives in their sick essay,
So time stitched hell and instead of being stitched in time
The fabric gaped open to swallow into its darkened slime
The baby, the bath water, the room, the parents, the villagers,
The fires, the char, the innocent, the pillaged, the pillagers.
It was easier before:
But we always want more, and the tears flow
But we always want war, and gun showers flow
But we always taunt luck, and the tears flow.
Easy solutions were easy to get but Greed’s chains are titanium
Laced in a diamond lattice tying down the maestro of pandemonium.
The constitution had saved once, but those promises fell into the slime
Stitched by hell to cut workers’ pockets to benefit organised crime
Where everybody wants favour, everybody seeks the power to sign
At the expense of kids’ futures, mothers and fathers crying.
It was easier before:
But now I need a visa, and I may not go
But now I need a visa, to live in my own home
But now I need a visa, to live.
Easy solutions will be easy to get where competence is worth any
But everybody wants favour, so logic took a stray bullet in the alley
And Cameronians closed their eyes on children crying
Everybody closed their eyes to the economy slowly dying
As if we were not one! I say we are one, and this war cannot be won
Until we become truly one: citizens, leaders (citizens), doing all to brighten the sun
It was easier before:
But now everybody is strapped, like that fixes anything
But now everybody is trapped like they can’t fix anything
But you wear your ego like that fixes anything!
It is still easy now:
Let’s get back to being humans, talking with humans.
That
fixes everything
(c) nyonglema
waghni 