Reanimated
Ruminations
Realized
Through
postulating
opposition
We severed
our hearts
from
our minds
Only
to
find
that
we
lost
the
capacity
to
miss
their
presence
Embrace
heart
center
before
you
lose
your
way
Welcome to a peace haven
where bullets on brother bodies
are signposts of no war.
Feel free in our fat-fees
campuses
where
butts
reinforce lessons.
‘No violence! No violence!’
Students chant in Buea,
but human bees from Yaoundé
invade them, stinging with bullets,
rubbing students in dark-greyish
polls of stagnant water,
ransacking hostels,
tearing female panties
to deposit bitter honey,
while vice chancellor
whirls on golden seat
celebrating victory
and eyeing next
On the green terrain of the fortitude, I have built a house out of the broken bricks, and the pebbles they had thrown at me. And I have painted my rooms bright, with the redness of the volcanic wound they had bequeathed me. And I’ve planted the thorns they had pierced me with in the garden, hoping to see them[Read More...]
Deep into the pit Surrounding dark sewage and dirt With nauseated stench And Whole body drench With human urination And defecation Manual scavengers clean Risking lives Leaving family bonds Sitting in cozy toilets And air-conditioned rooms Pass our wastage Into long winding drainage We talk of technology Development and ecology But With their bare hands, legs and misery And[Read More...]
“What type of poem am I?” I am as formless as the clouds, and as elegiac as the silence, in the itinerary of the noise. I am not a classic written by the author God. The rhythms of my verses are supplied by the parable of their tears. I am not in me, though I abide within myself. I am[Read More...]
In some cases
one can see
anger coming
from across the sea
Destructiveness
travels no longer
under sail
But in data streams
floats e-mail
Of intelligence
from satellites
may be no dearth
but what use
to the idiots
here on earth.
Nautical myths
have their charm
fair weather they wish
of foul weather they warn
Beware
of the language,
the violence explicit
In film it distracts
from criminals complicit
Beware
of the smoke
They didn’t have a single good tooth between them
but, they were smiling like children all the same.
In their mid fifties, homeless and destitute,
sat upon the curb of the gutter outside of the Foodbank
sharing mineral water and pre-packaged sandwiches.
He was tearing off his crusts and handing them to her
“There you go, my lover, I know how much you like ‘em”
whilst she was pulling tomato out of hers for him.
They had a radiant glow of love all around them
which was beautiful and infectious to behold.
In some cases
one can see
anger coming
from across the sea
Destructiveness
travels no longer
under sail
But in data streams
floats e-mail
Of intelligence
from satellites
may be no dearth
but what use
to the idiots
here on earth.
Nautical myths
have their charm
fair weather they wish
of foul weather they warn
Beware
of the language,
the violence explicit
In film it distracts
from criminals complicit
Beware
of the smoke
One of the lessons
in life
most difficult
to learn
is that when someone
says love
they might really
mean lust
which can leave you
in the lurch
with a heart
held in your hands
looking foolish
But I would never
become bitter
because precious time
is better served
singing psalms of selah
as patient feet
wait on the perfect melody
to arrive
with which to dance
There were women at train stations
waving their last sad goodbye
to their sweethearts bound for battle
as the soldiers who would die
sometimes for true, good reason
other times for just a lie
when there was no valid answer
to that anguished question: “Why?”
There were children gripped by horror
as their laughter turned to tears
when the bombs burst all around them
in those worst of wartime years
makes no difference what religion
godly trust just disappears
when the shrapnel cuts a family
