Sunday, July 28, 2013

Reprieve

Courtesy: 1songday.com

Prose poetry

Come; walk with me out of yourselves. See the vision of the world through the very eyes of childhood.

Take my hand. Let us traverse the threshold of freedom and savor the fragrance of unspoken seductions. We have been held down for way too long; held back from what is rightfully ours to explore. Let us exploit life in the fierce urgency of now and activate our miracle metamorphosis.

We never need to waste motion. You and I belong together in a world where bold compassion has been stolen, bought and sold; mutilated beyond repair. But our resolve has been refined in the forge of tribulation. Now the harvest trundles in on a thunder of deafening wings.

Housemates in a strange place we have found ourselves to be. Yet, none can erase what we really are if we clench the dream in a fist of optimism. The answer to our prayers lay hidden in trackless wilderness nevertheless, we will seek it like lost treasure.

Until we arrive at the end of our rainbow and seize the pot of gold, we must not give up hope to the jaws of despair. Eventually, we become Champions of the struggle when we mop up hate diagrams with bundles of kind acts and clog the gears of coldness with fruits of tenderness.


Akpan


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Saturday, July 27, 2013

I Wish

Courtesy: wish.org

Prose poetry

I wish that my pen would keep bleeding until these phrases slide thro every brain straight down to the heart and jump-start every good reaction.

I wish the jangling chains of discord would morph into a three-fold cord that strums on key and trusses all disparate sentiments in one bond. I wish our world was not so apocalyptic; that kids could roam free and wild on the streets and their folks would not make a fuss.

I wish that wishes were horses and families who knew all about losses could have one hell of ride and leave their worries panting in the dust. I wish that education was free and every child could have a shot at his/her dreams. I wish that children who grew into adulthood had a chance to prove their grit.

I wish that life wasn’t so competitive, after all. I wish that homegrown love could lift our eyes above our noses, make us feel another’s pain.

I wish that truth is standard again; I wish that we could return to the days of Eden and initialize our paradise regained.

I wish that the community of nations could be made to see that in diversity, there is beauty and strength. I wish that the content of character was the measure of a man’s worth.

I wish that every morning when I open my eyes in waking, I could see the colors of the rainbow bouncing off the walls of reality. I wish there was a touch of ambrosia to every smile and pure sweetness in every heart.

I wish that skeletons of stillborn promises could heed the prophecy in the wind’s howling and meld tissue to sinew to flesh to skin to emerge and stand forth a mighty army of attestation.

I wish that the body of every soulja who falls could wear a smile of accomplishment. I wish that these heroes being dead could get us thinking about better days.

I wish that tomorrow is forever.

I wish our faith in today could raise us on wings of eternity until we rise above our situations and render limitations obsolete; up and higher beyond all short-sighted expectations, into a home of serenity and rewarded longing.

I wish that the faint of heart could hope again; I wish that the dying could breathe again. I wish that the voices in the storm could marshal calm into this conundrum.

I wish that respect for a man’s right to liberty, to life and pursuit of happiness could ultimately annihilate the skit of justice witnessed in our day.

I wish that all these wishes were dynamite so that he who reads might explode off the page.


Akpan



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Sunday, July 21, 2013

The Woodshop Boys


Dying is easy; it’s staying alive that brings gooseflesh to attention all over your body—staying alive high on verve and on the other hand, geared up to die for what you believe. The codes that enhance a man are those for which he is willing to stand and/or take a tumble. Such a man’s quest might strip him of his very essence yet his death only serves to boost his endeavor.

Of all created things, man alone is accorded devolved responsibility—or so we like to think—and what this means is that man can decide how he cashes in his chips and for what he does it.
Courtesy: facebook
How: whether he goes out as the K-I-N-G of his destiny or as slave of a nobler class.
What: whether he buys the farm for a belief even rut and decay can’t hold a candle to or for some porous popular convention that can’t hold water.

In her essay, ‘Graduation’ clipped from her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings there is a paragraph where Maya Angelou mentions “the woodshop boys making sets and stage scenery.” These sets and scenery were constructed as preparation for the upcoming graduation of the senior students and Maya happened to be one of the graduates. The boys Maya talks about in that passage are actual schoolboys nevertheless, I want to assign them figurative roles in my write up. Think of these woodshop boys as the natives of your subconscious who have their backs to the grind as they sweat their butt to make ready for your grand entrée. The boys who have their job function explicitly stated, as night sheds its skin and becomes day, make sets and stage scenery.

What this boils down to, in point of fact, is only Time can issue you a certificate. It is Time who would expose “who did well, who excelled, and what piteous ones had failed.” The secret lies in never living for something you do not believe in; it is tricky to go meet your maker on account of something you wouldn’t live for. And a man can only muster courage with skill and swim an ocean if he believes that on the other side, on strange shores, his destiny—which suggests a million and one arresting metaphors to a million and one minds—waits for him, patiently.

Sure as shooting, dying is easy, you will get no argument from me there. Holding out a life fired up in the face of aggression now, that’s damn near impossible. Get the woodshop boys switched on regarding your itinerary; keep ‘em clued-up and then you can attend your business (in Maya’s words) “like travelers with exotic destinations on their minds.”

Keep your pen bleeding.


Akpan


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Monday, July 1, 2013

IntShoWriMo 2013: Signing Out



It's the first day of July, 2013 and it's goodbye to a successful IntShoWriMo 2013; I posted my 30 short stories for IntShoWriMo 2013 here.

During this year's IntShoWriMo, I churned out a total word count of 49,026 words. That's forty nine thousand, twenty six words, which means I broke the previous year's record. I did blog about IntShoWriMo before the challenge commenced officially. Nevertheless, it wasn't meant to be an official invitation but to create an awareness. In point of fact, it’s the reason I didn't bother posting the prompts for each day’s challenge ahead of time. I had to convince myself I could do it a second around.

Next year I plan to give an all-out invitation; though and if you're interested you can join in the fun.
Thanks, and see you around.


I stopped posting updates to the IntShoWriMo blog here on DAY 20 so for those of who haven't been going over there to read the stories, here are the links for DAYS 21 to 30:



Eneh Akpan
July 1, 2013


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