Winning poems for the 2021 Southern Cameroons Poetry Award

First Prize
HOMELESS HOME
(In solidarity with all refugees)
By VKING Kingsley – kvunain@yahoo.com

The tale is that of wars;
The wars that broke their walls,
Once upon a time was peace
Then came a time they lived without ease;
Brother against brother, soldier against civilians
Driven by their ego and ego of politicians.

They’re not foot soldiers
Yet in pain they trek across the fields;
They’re not sea divers
Yet they swim across the wild waters;
Miles to cover; day and night; foot to foot
Women like children marching about without food.

Loaded with weights like donkeys,
They hide in trees like monkeys;
In hunt of a place with peace as a key;
It’s the politics men play
That leaves others astray.

In search of love
In search of shelter
In search of pasture
In search of peace…
Away from home.

Where else be there peace if not home?
See their tears because they’re not aborigines;
See the bodies vomited by the sea ashore;
See their dry skins as they cross the deserts
Just like the scales on basking lizards.

Gratitude to the hearts that care;
That make life for them so fair,
We do not love if we hate strangers;
They come in peace and not like rangers.

My ink may not have bled enough
To vomit their swallowed plights,
But wherever you find them,
Hug them with true love…
Let the tears that rain their hearts not be in vain.


Second Prize
If I WERE PRESIDENT
By T.M Tanjang <temajungomichael@gmail.com>

A speck i am
An insignificant speck without arm
Bound, gagged and trodden upon,
Like a trapped tadpole in a pond,
Cowering thither from the nuzzle
But unabashed by my hustle,
Blind to the maimed in despair
Deaf to the cries of the tortured and fanfare
Dumb, to speak for my enslaved kith
Stretched to my limit and width
Indifferent in the Face of the colonel
But scared to take a bullet for shanel.

But what can i do?
For the genocide committed against my kind?
For the refugees bundled in line?
For the Orphans never to see the light?
For the future encased but not bright?
For Mancho Bibixi jailed and unfed?
And for my land caked in red.?

If I were president, my country i would cherish
My lands i would nourish
Free, my people shall be
Mary, John and even Angelie
Shall bathe in Freedom’s sake
Not even one would i forsake
For my kith shall bask in glory
And even the paupers won’t go hungry

If I were president, the minority I shall keep
For believe me, they shall not weep
The constitution I shall back with Veracity
The lines drawn in Foumban city
Nurtured for two peoples and two stars
Maintained with love and without lies
Bonded with two Capitals with light
For with such rule, the future is bright.

If I were President, the pen shall stand
High above the gun in my land
Cherished in style by the masses
For guns only conk asses
And mould the creeps
With the fear that wet the sheets
And the longing for foreign space
As a haven and to fix the lace.

But am not the president but caged
Beaten daily with the young and aged
Compelled to watch my sister being ravished
Destined to eat my shit when famished:
For being born an Anglophone
Is why my life hangs by a bone?
The life of a slave
In his own home condemned with just a wave.

A speck I Am without Arm
i watch without relish
While my people perish
An insignificant speck