A Review by Samira Edi
Lloney E. Monono. Dance of Scorpions. September 2007 (Available on lulu.com and amazon.com)
I’ve just been reading my autographed copy of The Dance of Scorpions, an anthology of poetry written by Lloney Eyole Monono, a man I am proud to call my friend. What a pleasurable reading cocktail and a clandestine peep into this quiet man’s soul.
While some of us straddlers have danced and ducked around that duty of chronicling our “memoirs” in whatever guise was befitting to our station, Lloney went ahead and “shot our fox as it were!” by releasing his second book in as many years!
I’ve giggled and guffawed over some of his hilarious little witticisms; been stimulated both emotionally and intellectually by others and I've been plain blown away by the profoundness of some. Lloney’s poetry manages to touch most fibres of our being with the diversification of his themes.
From it, I’ve selected one that perfectly captures the essence of one of Cameroon ’s most notorious highways, (or lowways.) “ Ekok Road ,” Sometimes called the Kumba-Mamfe road, this “occasional passing place” is the true test of patience, strength of character, and fitness; a road with valleys smack in the middle.
Please enjoy Lloney's poem that encapsulates what many Cameroonians and Nigerians who every dared to ply the Ekot Road have experienced. .
Ekok Road
By Lloney Monono
a hash hack
a venomous spray of spittle
a zip ripped undone
the hiss of a piss
corn fermented, filtered, bottled
- Recycled
A fart—silence
left leg cramp
no room for a twitch
but for the nocturnal summons of toads and crickets
silence
gone are the rude invitations
the war of woofers
the haggling, the conning
gone are the uniformed impressionists
- cows milked for the day would yield no more
two bright swords jutting into nothingness
moths milling
an entranced bitch
heavy with rotten remnants from the butchery
- at the market square
unblinking iridescent eyes cast skyward
woooooo-
silence
door opens – clangs shut
then again and again
grunts for space
flesh and metal in a bind
the stutter of an engine
grate of metal
squelches of red wet earch
the journey begins
fumigation
the crunch of kola
jars, jolts, bumps and creaks
a crazy yaw, sway swerve and spin
images of life’s hassles
lost in thought
the age of space – of fibre highways
ones, noughts tearing away
to and fro
the age of cyberspace-
`all man for gron’
dawn crawls lazily
like smoke from dark chapped lips
weary eyes that have seen it all
deceitfulness of demagogues
pretentious politicians
uniformed highway brigands
hopes abruptly terminated on this treacherous track
old men reclined on cane
pipes glued to toothless mouths
gaping at the past
women with basins of assorts
trailing worrisome children
- market day
greetings, sympathy and words of welcome
- abandonment breeds affability
palm wine – lots of it
- the wakeup tonic of these forgotten parts
the slide continues
weary arrival’s slow
via soggy hamlets
through the departing mist
up hills, down valleys, round pins
the pathway home stuck in time
Summer 1996
Book Description
The poems in this anthology serve as snapshots in time, revealing both the poet's thoughts and experiences over a period of sixteen years. They are categorised into Love, Life, Lust and Living. From shy lines on encountering love in ‘First Encounters Of A Different Kind’ to uninhibited lusty lines in ‘An Hour With Consuela’ and from desperate depths of ‘Dementia’ to the wicked world of war in ‘Eighth Plague’ this collection of a hundred plus poems promises quite a thought provoking read.
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