Tongues tide together by the strings of sweat,
pouring over each of them
as they stear into each others eyes
wondering what would be next,
if ever a next step for their waters to climb
and continue their hendonistic rhyme.

They sing the tune of those before,
who have explored the dainties of the flesh
an unfamilier song yet so familier
their eyes stuck on one another as the rain pours,
from within them sweet sweat drops
moaning the sounds of love.

Carried by the silence of the night,
like Zues and his many mates
the night ever so kind to lovers
embrace them with all its delights,
as they dance through the night
guided by the skys eye.

Tata Nanje

Struck by the hands of love
a pain I cannot forgive
worse than varicose veins
bulging through my skin
driving me insane;

How can I choose to live
when love may choose to leave?
Yet, the pain may subside
through sclerotherapy,
but who can really dodge
a blow dealt by love?

We may pretend to be aloof
and smile all along
and those who know us not
may temporarily be fooled
and sold a painful smile
known by those who have loved.

Weaving dreams
with the movement of this pen.
Movements get trampled
and often met by a fence.
One should then move
with the whole heart and grace,
to keep their weaving
from getting effaced.

This forbidden spell
that men and women binds
sacred like holy shrines
that every breath compel
wheeling arrows of love
piercing, greedy for blood
crimson rivers flood
painful tears from above.
Leave us bleed to death.

What happens when you no longer share the same interests you once did with friends? You were gone for a longtime, you moved, traveled, went to college and when you came back you had changed. Perhaps friends had changed. After all, no one stays the same. In either case things were not the same anymore.

Friends and friendships are formed when people who share a common interest come together. What happens when those common interests change? Do you move on or find something else that connects you again?

It often happens with family too. The more time you spend away from them, the more they seem like strangers. Sometimes the opposite happens. You go away for so long that when you come back things are different for the better. Interests change but the feeling to be together again grows but it is harder with friends. With friends, when that awkward feeling that makes you or your friends feel like you have grown apart, it takes more than time together to fix. How do you discover that feeling and things that brought you together again?

This is not something you can control. It just happens that people change and as they change, their likes and dislikes do as well. All you can do is stick to who are you and are becoming. Since I have been traveling a lot and about to do more traveling in the coming months, it’s a very peculiar feeling coming to what used to be home. It just doesn’t feel like home anymore. But what am I to do?

Longing for freedom, met by walls
Reaching for stars, met by a ceiling
A pain remains that cannot be conquered
Like freedom found by endless discomfort
I cannot help this damning feeling
Of climbing mountains with a need to fall

Weaving my dreams with threads woe
Reaping a pain I have not sown
I cannot break free of a past
Not my own yet we clash
Freedom and tradition in one home
One full of life one ready for the hole

So every time I make my path
Fate dashes an unfair blow
Crumbling my castle down to nothing
Waiting for me always plotting
To drag me to an endless hole
But my life dictate with freedom’s wrath

You know they are lying but you don’t know what to do or how to confront them. You are so in love that you don’t see the obvious signs of inconsistencies in their stories and behavior. A natural human tendency is to mistrust before trusting. In some cases this is a good thing because you can catch people in their lies and avoid a lot of frustration down the road in the relationship. But when it comes to love, things are not always crystal clear.

Sometimes we know and sometimes we just don’t know that the person we love is lying to us. And when we do know we ignore our logic and rely instead on our emotions. The problem with emotions is that more often than not they deceive us and by the time logic and rationality kicks in again, it’s too late. We are already in the sinking boat of hurt.

Some people might argue that lying sometimes preserves the relationship or that it protects the other person from their wrong doings. But if you love someone why would you choose to do something that would hurt them if they found out? Are you protecting them or are you really protecting yourself?

A lot of wrong doing in a loving relationship can be attributed to the doers insecurity. Their sense of worth is not as high as the person they are with or they feel they have to prove something to themselves. Wouldn’t it be much helpful for yourself and your relationship to just ask yourself, why would this person be with me if he or she didn’t find me worth being with them?

A friend of mine once said, “if your significant other lies to you it means they don’t respect you”. And if she or he doesn’t respect you, can they fully love you? Respect is a big part of a relationship. Why? It’s obvious no one respects a whore and certainly no woman respects a pig or a boyfriend. But let’s say you do respect them even though you know they are a pig or a whore because they have confessed everything to you and they follow their words with actions. Can you live with their past?

And since now that you know their past, can you really trust them? Without trust love is hard. Trust and love are like conjoined twins except when you separate them it is guaranteed that one dies. It is impossible to have one without the other. Little “white lies’ lead to bigger “white lies”. And lies lead to mistrust. If trust is out of the picture soon if not already, love will be out of the picture too. And if so, is getting out of the relationship the only solution?

The days have returned when the mind flows with thoughts needing to be expressed, stimulate and challenge. It’s been awhile but I have been busy with the opening of a new hostel in Paris and the restructuring of tataPC as a result of new contracts and partnerships. All in all things are going well. That is precisly what I have
been up to. But that’s not all.

A few months ago I announced the completion of my new book, A Traveler’s Diary. I have been busy with that too. The completion of a book means nothing I have come to find out. Finding a publisher is like working nine to five but luckily a friend of mine refered me to DIP Publishing. I have been in contact with them discussing the steps of publication and what they can do for me as a Writer. Again, this is not an easy process especially since I have not been at one place for more than two months since I left Korea. But I got to live! And because of my need for adventure, things have been on hold as far as the book is concerned. The good thing is, DIP Publishing is located in my hometown, Marietta, GA. So as soon as I return home which I hope will be soon, I will be meeting with them. Although things might look promissing, there is more to be said about this process.

Editing and proofing is not fun. In the process you get new ideas, you test them in the story, you erase, you write again, you erase, you call a friend and on and on and on. It gets tedious. The good thing about this is you learn alot about yourself in the process and come up with new ideas about what you want to write about next. For instance, this book is about my journey and my travels from Cameroon, to U.S, to Asia then to Europe. But the journey of life never ends. It continues whether we write about it or not. As a result of the editing process with the much appreciated help of one of my dearest friend Allan, I have come up with other ideas that we think will enhance the appreciation of the material. With that said, here are a few of my favorite poems and I think Allan’s as well from chapter one:

Connections

The grass is green.
The wind is calm.
A voice whispers;
I cannot see.

Who speaks to me?
I do not know.
An inside voice
calms my soul.

This is not a feeling
I have had before.
Should I jump
and dance on this floor?

It was a woman’s voice;
a gentle one.
Full of love yet sad,
saying, “you and I are one

you are my son”.

My grandfather

He walks among men
but I think he is more
than the grass on our yard,
more than the muddy road we take to school,
more than the plank house where we live.

He is more than the hot Cameroonian sun,
than the leaves in the thick forest,
than the wind that speaks to me,
than the night that calms my woes
and the streams that gives us water.

He is more than I can say,
more than the birds that we hunt
and the flowers and the bees
that make honey so sweet.
He is more than the heart that beats within
the only heart that I know;
the only man that I know

to be the father I do not know.

The letter

He smiled at me and laughed a bit;
he looked at the ground for awhile.
I said nothing wondering why
I have never seen him like this.

He sat next to me,
an unfamiliar feeling
ran through my body.
I could not find my form.

I have not found my form,
not in speech and not on paper,
and certain feelings I have yet to know;
feelings that sometimes are best shared by those
who breathe life into this world.

So I could not make him out
until he made well to utter,
“your parents have sent another letter,
and this one maybe the last”.

If you are a lover of art like myself, you will love Paris. There are several groups you can join that offer a cozy environment of like minded people with great artistic merit. One of my favorite events to attend although I am fairly new there is Spoken Word in Paris. It is a very friendly and inviting atmosphere with poets from many countries sharing their perspective in prose, short stories or reading something written by another author that they found interesting.
Here is a photo of me at the last event in September along with my video readings.

The rules for reading are: There is only one rule, you have 5 minutes to read your stuff. David reminds you when your time is about to run out by ringing the bell as you hear in the last video.

For info on these events, follow the blog at: spokenwordparis.blogspot.com
And to meet people in Paris and create social networks go to: meetup.com