Up Station Mountain Club

[Poetry] Franglish Around the Mungo

 By Dr. Peter Wuteh Vakunta

Chaque fois que I think about the deep merde

Into which these salopards de politiciens

Have plunged this freaking pays,

Je jure que I have the urge to leur tordre le cou

With my unarmed mains dare-dare.

Comment se fait-il que we have given

Ces fils de chien the leeway to not only taken

Every Camers for a ride but have comble de malheur

Hypothéqué l’avenir of our children and grand-children?

Ces bandits dévergondés have non seulement

Enriched themselves sur le dos de tous les Camers mais

Ils se sont du même coup transformés

En véritables fossoyeurs de la patrie!

Comment se fait t-il que the more we complain,

The more our leaders nous font la sourde oreille?

J’aimerais bien le savoir because it never rains but it pours,

Merde, Merde, Merde alors!

Senegal music star Ndour makes bid for presidency

By SADIBOU MARONE

FILE- In this Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010 file photo, Senegalese pop star Youssou Ndour, …

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — World music icon Youssou Ndour says he plans to run in Senegal's presidential election next month, challenging an 85-year-old incumbent whose plans to seek a third term have sparked violent protests.

Nation of Born Again Slavery

 By Dr. Peter Vakunta

 

 

 

Methink we are now vibrating on the same wave length

Regarding the veracity in the assertion that Cameroonians

Are governed by Born Again Slaves,

Philemon Yang is no exception,

Paul Biya and Jacques Fame Ndongo

Have played the lyrics and they are all

UNCANNY ACTS OF A ZOMBIE PRESIDENT

EXCLUSIVE!!! Paul Biya Appoints a ‘DEAD MAN’ as SDO of North Makombe

January 28th, 2011  

Paul Biya. Time to go and rest now Popol.

According to the newspaper La Nouvelle Expression (Cameroon), on the 18th Jan 2011, president Paul Biya signed a decree appointing Senior Divisional Officers (SDO) for some 370 subdivisions in Cameroon. The appointments were however read on the 24th January and to the horror of some members of the public, the deceased Njutapmwoui Ousmanou was among those appointed. Reports show that the late Njutapmwoui Ousmanou who was 2nd Assistant at the Bagangte Mayor’s office passed away on the 11th of May 2010 and had since been buried in his native village of Massagam in the Western province. Yet our president went ahead to appoint him as SDO of Manjo sub-division in the Mungo.

For more on the story, click here

Poetry - The Citadel (Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Yaounde University Students' Uprising)

By Dibussi Tande

Memory Lane: 20 years ago on April 2, 1991, the Yaounde University students' uprising began. Find below a commemorative poem..

I
The Mobilization:
The fiery speeches
The protest marches
The huge rallies
The call to arms

The angry cries:
la conférence nationale
il y'aura !!
Fait quoi fait quoi
il y'aura !!
Ça gâte, ça gâte !!
Campus Mort!!!

MOISSON AMBIGUE - “Strange Harvest”

Hope Kale Ewusi

Ah! Mango season in my land;
Time of year ‘just can’t wait
To fondle ripe fruits with my big hands,
From branches dipping low with weight.

‘Was late rising up the other day;
Long night, a vigil I kept - you know:
Looked out my window about noon day-
What I saw, hit me like a mighty blow.

SHADES OF THE JASMINE CRUSADE

Hope Kale Ewusi

Twas the scene that made the news;
When at last the Tunisian genie
Broached its urn, and sent the scoundrels
Scampering from the den -
A flowering feat as yet unseen
As from enchanted gardens sweet jasmine
Charmed the Maghrebian sky and hitching
Upon a bosom wind, the spell would soon
Engulf the once slumbering Nile.

Toil and Delivery - New Book by Bill F NDI

Bill NDI's Toil and Delivery can be as playful and loaded as the clues in a cryptic crossword puzzle, which is to say that they are marked by a strange, energetic hybridity. They occupy a dynamic space between nursery rhyme and visionary Romantic verse, between the colloquial and the archaic, between post-modernity and anachronism. They are local and global, political and personal, Western and non-Western. With experiences traversing both Africa and the West, Bill F. NDI is one of those poets who gives meaning to the word globalisation. He embraces poetry as a material act in a troubled world, with poetry's power conveyed with typical irony.

 

 

 

Bill F NDI/Toil and Delivery

Toxic Waste at Home

With his crew, he screws the nation
They exhale carbon dioxide
And inhale everything oxygen
These are all platitudes!
But the truth they don’t know
About everybody in this nation
Breathing just carbon dioxide;
Bought with trees from which came oxygen
Denying all attributes
And letting waves to grow;
Grow waves and sweep,
Sweep, sweep, sweep,
Sweep with you this toxic waste at home
And leave home clean as the pope’s in Rome.

© Bill F. NDI 2010

Never, Never Forget Lake Nyos!

Excerpt from Mishaps and Other Poems  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kamerun’s August Visitor.

When a thief gets into the safety vault

It is never any one’s fault

Not even when all is evident

The mission was by Mr President

Ordered just as I did to kill 1985

And to bury 1985

With none seeing me welcome 1986

Whose ghost, in this month of my birth since

Pursues me. And the journey I remember;

Awaiting high school GCE results

Harbouring no thoughts of assaults

And on board a bus from the Tropical Rain Forest

To the Grassfield where rest

I hoped I find,

To my ears the wind

Came chanting of Nyos, Cha and Subum

Where the bomb resounded boom, boom, boom!

And to nature, turned the architect’s accusing finger

And when in the future, I wonder,

Will my ears of the truth drink

For all I know if I think

And think properly is I didn’t touch the Grassfield

When I was told God’s chosen grandsons were in the field,

God indeed has shuttled them there quicker

And faster than would run any duiker

So they could minister care

And mask the tear

For all to delight

And follow the light

The light they threw away from the truth

And none will ever know this in sooth. 

AIDS: Na Dey Thing Whey You Gie We Papa ?

 
The church bell clangs again and again,
calling the faithful to prayer.
The timing is odd, so too are these days.
As I tossed and turned in bed,

I could see the rising dust through the window
as the procession approached my bearing.
A melancholic rhyme filled the room.
By now I could sing it by heart.
 
Na dey ting whey you gie we papa,
Na im whey we dey bringam so.
Na dey ting whey you gie we papa,
Na im whey we dey bringam so.
Papa heyyyyyyyy, Eh papa eh,
Make we take am with all our hart.
Papa heyyyyyyyy, Eh papa eh
Make we take am with all our hart.
 
On the casket, I could see a picture.
A young man in far happier times,
His diplomas adorned this final journey  home.
What a waste? Another cut down in his prime?
What an epidemic of death and destruction?
Yet, we refuse to learn from the obvious!
Again parents will bury their children.
Who will be there when their time comes?  
This time I don’t ask how or why,
I know the all too familiar answers.
Its witchcraft, ‘nyongo’ or slow poison.
Its everything but the obvious.
Across the street is my brother’s friend.
He’s got so much diarrhea, he wears diapers
When his wife died last year,
They buried her with a spear.
   
It’s been almost ten years since my friend died.
I am coming home for the first time.
I visited his aged parents who have buried two children.
I went to the graveyard to pay my last respect.
The tombstones told the story of a generation lost.
Manyi Mboko, born 1975, called to glory 2006.
On and on it went until I could not hold back the tears.
Unknowingly, many of my childhood friends were gone.
 
I was sad, then angry, then sad, then angry.
Why are we cursed to repeat the errors of the past?
Are we the children of a lesser god?
AIDS is here to stay and God has heard our cries.
Prevention is better and treatment is effective.
Stigmatization creates sero-deception.
Sero-positive is better than sero-ignorance.
We must work together to end this wave of dying young.

Na dey ting whey you gie we papa,
Na im whey we dey bringam so.
Na dey ting whey you gie we papa,
Na im whey we dey bringam so.
Papa heyyyyyyyy, Eh papa eh,
Make we take am with all our hart.
Papa heyyyyyyyy, Eh papa eh
Make we take am with all our hart.

©  2010 Ndum Philip, MD

(Book Review) Paradise of Idiots by Peter Vakunta

Peter Wuteh Vakunta.   PARADISE OF IDIOTS. Bloomington.  AuthorHouse. 2010. 84 pp.Cloth $15.99.  ISBN 978-1452008017

Poetry has the potential to be both therapeutic and cathartic, allowing poets to wade through ontological meanders in their lives; to find answers to nagging questions of the moment; seek clarity in the midst of obscurantism; comfort and solace in troubled times; peace and tranquility in a world gone haywire. Versification provides a vehicle for the transportation of diverse attitudes, frames of mind, and fresh insights. Paradise of Idiots accomplishes these feats. The poet speaks in a confident tone of apocalyptic utterances: advising, warning, denouncing, protesting, and chiding. This long poem harbors the twin virtues of germaneness and clarity of diction. The poet willfully eschews the irksome ineloquence and syntactic sophistry characteristic of traditional poets. He dialogues with the reader like our traditional guardians of the word, the griots, did in a bygone time. Passion, energy, and cutting irony are the hallmarks of this didactic book.

(Book Review) Camtok and other Poems from the Cradle by Peter Vakunta

Peter Wuteh Vakunta. CAM TOK AND OTHER POEMS FROM THE CRADLE. Bloomington.   AuthorHouse. 2010.97 pp.Cloth $15.95.  ISBN 978-1452008031

Cam Tok & Other Poems from the Cradle is the poet’s attempt at capturing in print the orality characteristic of Cameroonian discourse and speech mannerisms of the proverbial man in the street. Pidgin English, also called broken English, is a lingua franca spoken throughout the national territory of Cameroon. Of the over 200 languages spoken in this African country, only Pidgin enjoys the rare privilege of being spoken by people from all social strata and walks of life, regardless of educational standing. Indeed, Pidgin has acquired the status of an independent language in Cameroon. It is no longer restricted to small talk, business and music; it is now the language of Cameroonian literature. Francis Njamnjoh, Patrice Nganang, Kangsen Wakai, Mercédès Fouda, and Gabriel Fonkou to name but a few, have adopted Cam Tok as a medium of expression in their literary works.

THE GODS MUST BE ANGRY

By Peter W.Vakunta

I woke up feeling bruised. I hadn’t slept a wink. The whole night I did battle with her.

“I want your blood now!” she said, baring her protruding teeth.  Terrified, I stared into her hooded eyes. I knew I was going to die. Her thick lips shook with anger as she threw her elephantine weight on me, gripping the nape of my neck with gorilla-like hands.

HICCUPS IN THE NEO-COLONY

Hic! Hic! Huc!

Hiccups of mental masturbation

Hic! Hic! Huc!

Hiccups of linguistic glottophagia

Hic! Hic! Huc!

Hiccups of cultural bastardization

Hic! Hic! Huc!

Hiccups of economic asphyxiation

MARTYRDOM: A FREEDOM POEM

Their bodies lie rotting

In mass graves all over the land!

Their ghosts ignited

Les villes mortes,

Infamous ghost-town operations,

Civil disobedience movement,

Last ditch battle with vampire politicians

That brought economic life

To a virtual standstill

In Mimboland—

WHEN DID THE RAINS START TO BEAT US?

Peter Vakunta

When did the rains

Start to beat us?

Was it when our country took

The wrong turn in Foumban?

When a people grope around in obscurity

Oblivious of who they are

Not knowing where they’re going

Maybe that’s because

They don’t know

Where they hail from

And if they don’t know

Their provenance

Then they’ve failed in the quest

For the fundamental self

Maybe that’s because

They’re out of touch with reality—

A rediscovery of the ordinary

UNSUNG HEROES

Legion are those compatriots/

Who paid the supreme price/

To safeguard our freedoms/

Yet, Nooremac remains/

A hellhole where the rich feed muck to the poor/

Ruben Um Nyobé might given up the ghost/

In the depths of the forest/

Of Sanaga Maritime/

Fighting for the liberation of Nooremacans/

¶ Easter Wings.

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,   Though foolishly he lost the same,      Decaying more and more,       Till he became    Most poore:    With thee

Spelling Victory

Flowing   from   those   taps   by  the  Mungo

Framed circuits, farms on which slowly grow

Fossilizing  dead brains  renowned  drunk

And stuck with stinking fart from skunks

Skunks use to mark their territory

Staggering with feverish victory

Sending the stench of dead rat

Hitting   hard  all  little  brat

Taking pride in night flight

Apprehensive    of    trite

Choir masters intone

With hammers on stone

Racking brains

Pouring rains

From eyes

On   ice

G r i p

Drip

I

I

!

!

Want to see liquid

Or you should just quit

So none would see mimbo in a cup

That has been giving us the hiccup.

Take no leave of this pidgin English song,

One that I would could right such big wrong.

By Dr Bill F. NDI.

PARADISE OF IDIOTS

Basking in oxymoronic solace/

Of mediocrity, ineptitude and lethal myopia/

Self-styled ‘People’s Representatives’/

Metamorphosed nitwits/

Chatter like demented hoodlums/

In the abyss of the Ngoa-Ekelle Glass House:

Motion au Président de la République!/

Poems by Hope Kale Ewusi

SANKOFA

Restless spirit of impetuous youth-
Seeker of fortune in alien climes;
I’m lost, stranded in this metropolis.
Caught in a labyrinth of churches
And stone faced structures with-
Gargoyles giving me the evil eye….
So far away from the ant hills of my savannah;
Far from the Kilimanjaro from whence
The Blue Nile flows…..quick – quick!
I need a drink of palm wine and some kola nuts.

RETOUR AU PAYS NATAL

Un jour je retournerai à cette terre mienne

Qui m’attend bras ouverts

Je lui dirai—

Embrasse-moi sans peur—

Je lui affirmerai :

Si je ne sais que hurler,

C’est pour toi que je hurlerai.

Ma bouche sera ta bouche,

Celle des laissés-pour-compte de mon pays natal,

Ma voix sera la voix des sans-voix,

Celle des opprimés de mon pays de naissance.

A Gilded World Cup (found poem)

 Did the soccer -
uber salesman
from hell,
sell
any 2010 tickets?

Achirri, Ann Arbor, 9 March 2010

A View From Berlin (found poem)

The Croats are tanned,
the Swedes pink,
the Poles the color of powder.

They hoist the flags of their nations
and trundle like tiny
sweating armies under the sun.

The beer comes in big cups,
and the boats on the River Spree
glide past with music and accents
Italian, French and German.

A Finn paints himself blue
and races through the boulevard leading
to the Brandenburg Gate.

Past Poles painted red
and Dutch painted orange,
past flags snapping in trees and songs
drifting into the dusk.

A German with a Dr. Seuss hat
dyed in his native colors
sips a beer and looks to a gigantic TV
where a ball arcs towards a net
at incredible speed.

Achirri, Montpelier, VT, 06-19-2006)
(Acknowledgement: Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times)