If You Believe the Stories
He should never have gone back there
for there was nothing left.
A familiar familiar blew about the ruins
of what was once a great strong-hold
Where there should have been time,
every other thing was absent.
He should never have gone back there
as there was only one thing left:
the ghost of a ghostly appearance imprinted in the air.
Smotherer
Who lies upon your bed?
Whose warmth has replaced mine?
Who fights with the night flies?
That would come to suck of me and mine?
Who now lies upon your bed?
Whose warmth has replaced mine?
Who now fights your tenacious limbs?
Who now robs me of what was mine?
You were always too tired
When the blood music played faster
I wonder, did tiredness stem from
Your daily interpretations of Miles Davies?
Time of story while running faster,
Time of sea-side distractions, shells, drums
Didjiredoos.
Time of powders, acid drops, while flying further off.
Who lies beside you?
Would that I knew
Who lies beneath you hand in hand?
Imation
I went to the place where we first met
thinking I’ll see you sitting there
like on the day I first met you
– red lipstick on your taut lips
purple shaded eyes and that ivory smile
against your upturned face of chocolate shade
dark, hard and viscous to the tonsils.
I went to the place where first we met
talking to myself all the way, thinking
of how you used to take my hand,
fiddle with my fingers. Wishing
I’d see you turn your face to mine
as I walk towards you thinking of nothing else.
The cape of Night is falling over a city,
your seat at your corner in your bar is empty;
The drunks are just getting warmed up.
Eyes to the stage pilgrim of no man’s time
think in your tank, boil in your veins
while trudging home to the cat-calls of
ten thousand talented prostitutes.
Yesternight No?
Yesterday we met by the river at midnight
Yesternight, our spirit souls escaped to converse by the Mezam and to hear her streams sound
We heard the stony screams of sleeping mortals as we wished alive our fire
We witnessed the malignance and purity shine out auras from the hovering spirit above
We watched a girl wriggling on the ground, snakes escaping from her neck
We heard the old men plot within mud walls of building pyres, making machetes and the witch hunt
Ten virgins were slain to sign their pact
Ten virgins were slain to silence the past
Minutes migrated and six young hours before the earliest cock crew
Nchindias wrestled with dragons and the kwi-for hurled his black metal spear
Yesterday we made magic with the release of adventure
Yesternight, while lovers whispered away the cold,
while children pissed themselves awake,
while the mattress soaked through wet
Our spirit people connived with the R. Mezam while we wraiths
played sex with the naughty river witch charming from there underneath.
Fon Tuma is a Cameroonian poet born March ’85 in Bamenda. He travelled to Bangalore, India for further studies as an IT professional. It was in this city of diversity where he re-discovered a childhood passion of books and writing. He started writing poetry and five years later, back in his home city of Bamenda, his collection of poems titled Rose-moon and Fire is ready and will reach the markets mid 2012. He loves music, travel and film.
Four Poems by Fon Tuma
