New Collection: Worth Their Weight in Thorns

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About the book

This poetry collection is yet another confirmation that Bill F. Ndi is a major contributor to Anglophone-Cameroon literature. He is a poet, with conviction, who refuses to let the Sun set on the Anglophone-Cameroon Literature. In this volume his cry resounds beyond the bounds of his thorny native Cameroons. He is not repelled by the thorny nature of his world to create a parallel universe smoothened by careful and skillful use of language. B.F. Ndi’s smooth verse is set against a rhythmic backdrop and its lines would wake up any sleeper. It is with such that the poems address human concerns and predicaments with both verve and fervor that challenge and refresh the reader/listener at the pronouncement of every word. Built around the pervasive imagery of thorns, this collection is poignant and effective from beginning to end.

We Shan’t Perch

kill peace slyly
her music has just
far from dust
been really
soft so
and called for no
knell, bell, snell, cell, gel,
smell, yell, spell, girl, fell…
shot hunting change for all
but stood tall,
treating waste matter
she is a master
no mistress
would with mess
So she won’t look
nor utter a yelp at the fluke
blinking bs
on whom should be unlocked swarms of bees
to buzz change with e in their ears
and hoping one of their ears hears
not the soft music
but the pain with which all is sick
of them dreaming in silence we die
round the clock we shall tell them they lie
for we are birds from hunters flying
if power-tricksters think themselves hunters shooting without missing
we shan’t perch
as we for peace search.

In response to Trevor Disposable world

Grumpy old man stage
I young'ns more harshly judge
than I would have wanted
to be at that age.
But the values
of insidious older manipulators
blithely wrecking cultures
laying waste the world
do really frighten me.
Someone needs to tell them
- no, they know -
the planet is a not-for-profit concern
non-returnable, no exchange.

© Phil Mahnken 21 March 2008

Scavengers

You, you, you, and you see them as filthy filth
No doubt they live off the filth
But these scavengers need be treated with love
Not because they’re stronger than the dove.

You, you, you, and you may not see the reason
Yet, in this nation lions hang on trees for “treason”.

And Vultures flap their wings and send through the air
Fragrances and freshness all would wear and bear;
And when from their thrones lions with joy
Accomplish their favorite ploy
Albeit sick and unfit to rule
In the game they fix the rule;
Slitting the throat of a prey
And it is then that vultures prey
Cleaning the gory scenes of our pavement,
Driving the quest for anything more useful to environment;
Some big fat cat do too no doubt
With Blake’s, my family totem, making me proud
But not in seeing them strife on the living,
Not even when for them this rhymes with surviving.

Thorns of Love

 

At the campaign we only saw a picture

We’d better wait him in to see the feature

His picture was spotless and stainless

So we hopped and danced for his holiness

 

Falling in love blinds to the fact

Tiny little hair can kill the pact

When it’s grown big pulling its weight like thorn

In the flesh of love heavier than a ton

 

Copy such love not, keep eyes wide open

Keeping away all foul fowls in pen

Conditions by the tons

For true love make their thorns

 

At close range the hairy face freckles show

Stainlessness and spotlessness were pre-show

Forced unto us for love of near reality

 

                  When for real all other is indeed reality




              Curled from Sing Love 101