bakwerirama

When I Fall in Love, I Talk about Buea (A Valentine's Day Poem)

By Joyce Ashuntantang

When I fall in love, I talk about Buea
One way street into my heart: from mile 17 to Buea Town

Luscious tomatoes, color of my lipstick smudged on his shirt
Remnants of kisses falling on fertile volcanic soil

Liengu's husband, Epasa moto*, part man, part stone,
Sole witness to nature's surrender.

Gbea - A Poem

By Dibussi Tande (Culled from No Turning Back: Poems of Freedom 1990-1993 - Available on Amazon.com and Michigan State University Press)

I look at your sores
And I feel the pain of our misery
I walk in your squalor
And I sense our impotence
I witness your slow decay
And my soul slowly dies.

Adieu Dr. Herbert N. Endeley

By Jerry Komia Domatob

As Dr. H. N. Endeley joins ancestors
Cheery with decorum and splendor
Admirers applaud his grand feats
Shinning like lights on mountain tops

Buea University captures global spotlight
Like Olympic winners on universal spotlight
As maiden Registrar, Dr. Endeley set standards
Both friends and foes emulate and salute

Tribute to a Fallen Hero: Dr Herbert Nganjo Endeley

By Ernest L. Molua

A Fako native is fallen
A Hero is fallen
Together in grief we join.
Nganjo is lifeless
Herbert is Breathless
Citizens in Fakoland together stand,
Citizens in Diaspora bemoan
Honor those who served.
Tribute to the fallen;
As in EML Endeley
Family of the fallen,
So too, Nganjo is fallen
Bears our debt in grief.
Today another funeral;
In Fakoland, one too many
Honors this one taken.
One man's duty done;
Prosperity continues.

Before the First Rooster Crows - A Poem

By Eposi N. W. Tokeson

Moms prepare their wares for the market place
Dads sharpen their cutlasses for the farms.
Moms heat up (ekwakoko ya weku).
Children get up reluctantly from their cozy beds when the 3rd rooster
crows.
And line up with their buckets, for the stream to fetch water.

The Horseman's Woman

By Mbella Sonne Dipoko

Some Bakweri people in Great Soppo owned horses
When I was growing up in that village as a small boy, going to school
In the late 1940s of the just-ended century.
And on the Mission Hill too there were horses
On which white missionaries sometimes rode
For the fun of it for they also had their station wagons.
Maybe it was because of those horses
That I came to write
About a woman who never betted on the races, not being a gambler,
But who nevertheless was always dreaming of a big black horse
On which a man sometimes came riding through her farm,
A big black horse that sometime was No. 6
And at other times it was marked No. 9
And always it was painful to her
Whenever that man came riding through her farm
As if it was no longer her private property
But the village common or the Town Green
On which any black horse could gallop
And any cow graze.

FAKO SUMMIT OF HOPE

By Mola Fritz Ngale Ilongo

Fiery crown of the Kpes
Guarding refugees on exile from lands ancestral
Brooding brow wreathed with cloud waves high and low of tide
Mirror reflecting flitting emotions experienced below awesome giant.
From sources mysterious, rivers and fountains red molten
Are belched suddenly
The invincible floods preceded by shivers earth-shaking

Prelude to gigantic vomits
Coughing out earth's bowels devouring
Terror of generations
Never committing the error of annihilating species menaced by extinction
Seeking protection grace within arms colossal.
Solid flanks of forest green repel invasion onslaughts
Petering out into savannah lush
Dancing brushes waving gaily in soft breezes without caprice

In Memoriam: Poetry By Ndeley Mokoso

A SALUTE TO MOUNT FAKO

I stand at the salute
my right hand aloft and my head salaamed
to the great Olympus of West Africa
the colossus, citadel and sanctuary of the Bakweri-men of old
from the daring exploits of early despots in the name of
explorers and patriarchs
substituting native despotism for white civilization
and bringing Christendom into heathendom
from the traffickers of black gold
from the ruthless Hun with his sticks spitting out fire and death
the pogrom of a hostile and stubborn race
the rape of a people by a people
But KUVA LIKENYE stood his ground in complete defiance of the carnage
the hero of his emasculated people
and you roared, shook and fumed in wrath
belched out smoke, fire and brimstone
The terrestrial brotherhood scampered in panic and pitched
their bastion in Douala
but that was a long, long time ago
before my father's father
But there you are ! Moli mo FAKO! LAIR OF IFASA MOTO!
bulwark of ages
still dominating the scene
indomitable, majestically dormant
the Giant Pyramid of West Africa
I salute! I salute you!

Winner of the 1995 Cameroon National Poetry Award

Moma'a Njoku (Mighty Elephant): A Poem by Simon Mol

We are proud of Who we are.
We are proud of What we are.
We are proud of 'a Time'... this Time.
We are proud too of This Place.
We are proud of You watching over us – Might of Mystical Myth
... to prejudice, a silly void.

Culture is not for sale.
Shadows travel far
but Custom is all we have and this forever will remain our Fortress.
Our Gods are silent... but not for long.
We can smell our day of victory, close at hand.
Snails on our backyard have grown wings...
They are racing to hail the reign of Moma 'a Njoku –
Our Sacred Beast... prowling its preys, turning them into Ancestral things.
We are proud to declare the freedom of our Spirits.
We... bona fide children of N'yango Eze ... (Mother Earth)
Are already proud... of 'a Day' to Come.

Simon Mol. Africa... My Africa /Afryka... Moja Afryka (A bilingual poetry collection in English and Polish) by Simon Moleke Njie. VERBINUM (Wydawnictwo Księży Werbistów, Warsaw 2002)

http://www.molsimon.prv.pl