Last of an Endangered Breed

Courtesy: @refugees

Prospects turn up worse than a gamble

The gruesome vocabulary

Will fill up a board of Scrabble

I can't make out my itinerary

Thro the road all runners come.

No avenue of escape from this soul Armageddon

So l cling to the brink of deliberate disaster

Gives me pause. My dirge is mastered.

I sense my exit right on course

Last of an endangered breed

I'm beleaguered by the creed

Of a nobler class.

Like I'm staring thro a frosted glass

My immediate proximity

Is nightmares to humanity.

How do I breathe?

Akpan

Game of Dice

Courtesy: Twitter/UNHCR

There's a lot of irony in life

And it don't come without a slice

Of the usual freak show

Well if I survive long enough to grow old

I'd rename myself the miracle.

Now the possibility don't seem so practical

But heck nothing else is.

Besides this man-made Apocalypse

We hear so many suggestions

But situation's raising so many more questions.

Legislation's matching 'em all with objections

Hypocrisy is their obsession.

So what, we dying?

In their greed-shot eyes

We ain't even trying.

It's like a game of dice.

Akpan

Prejudice

Courtesy: Twitter

My life ain't heaven

Hell! Even the path I tread is uneven

So many tears shed

Yet tears forgotten

Keep agitating my cryptic bed

Still I don't wanna be forgotten.

My tragedy

Exists because I was born before my time

But there are certain things for which I owe no apology

And this will do just fine.

The greatest pain discovered

Is that men judge a book by the cover,

What's the bother taking a peek?

Just a glimpse, men that's just deep

Enough to make their prejudiced judgement

Based on their fraternized mental dysfunctionment.

Akpan

It All Goes On

Courtesy: Twitter

It all goes on.

Life down here is a two-way portal.

It all goes on.

You get in you get out aint no rebuttal.

It all goes on.

You’re born you grow up you buy yo’ ticket.

It all goes on.

Life’s a bitch so get real and quit faking it.

It all goes on.

Folks live folks love folks die deal with it.

It all goes on.

If babies die in time of war who gives a flying frosting?

It all goes on.

Pregnant women? Children? Erase the wasted.

It all goes on.

So what if the survivors grow up uneducated?

It all goes on.

We dream, we laugh, and we kill, all in one breath.

It all goes on.

It’s the life we chose; it’s the life we run to death.

It all goes on.

You are all blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh.

It all goes on.

And if we want we can turn the sun before it sets.

Life does go on.

Akpan

Dead Dreams

Courtesy: Twitter

Staring down over a grave of dreams

I observe a billion good intentions go to rut

Solitary reapers on the verge of picking the gleanings

But falling just shy of their mature expectations.

Never made it but almost

Dreams coming thro but not quite fulfilled,

Lives well lived… almost.

Destinies moderately decoded.

I wonder how many millions have trucked this way;

What each heart would pour out and lay bare

If they were offered another shot to set things straight.

Would they make akin mistakes or throw in their best?

Because in the tomb where dreams are laid to rest

Only uncorrupted half-assed undertakings

Narrate tales of aborted victories,

And paint pictures of triumph’s grave defeats.

Akpan

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Houdini Girl

 

When Yusra Houdini (I mean Mardini) fled from Syria to Europe, her boat’s engine died and it began to take on water, Yusra pushed the boat towards Greece for 3.5 hours. She swam for her life and lived to swim for the first Refugee Olympic Team (ROT) at the Rio Olympics.

They all could have gone to heaven in a lil’ rowboat

Fetching the blind denouement to lives built on tragedies.

They thought it was the end of a beautiful anecdote

But your charm and grace brought a twist to the story,

Plotting a route thro troubled waters like a sea creature

You were the courage-fueled motor that found a landfall,

A personality having in herself facility to produce light.

Hardiness of your heart has percolated into souls to ignite

And crystallize minds that otherwise was habitat to despair.

You are the dream and the hope of 21 million battle-scarred.

Akpan

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Everything Lost

Courtesy: UNHCR

Nothing to hide

Because they lost everything;

The unhinging look in their eyes

Speaks volumes on life that’s empty,

Fleeing home they found an excuse

For a bettered sense of purpose

They threw their all down and fused

And then watch their lives decompose.

Live and let die

They’ve seen the end of everything,

Stuck in a rut it sure is tough to ride

Who gets school? Who reaps nothing?

The specter of inequality threw sucker

Punches and blew it right out the water;

You don’t get what you deserve life sucks

How do you start over when you lost it all?

Akpan

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Not Happy 2 Fake It

Anjelina Lohalith
Courtesy: @Refugees

This is the seventh in a poetry series created from lyrics of musical classics.

The piece you are about to read begins with the seventh line of the song “Easy” by Lionel Richie.

I’m not happy when I try to fake it

In fact I’m sad when I try to fake it

What’s the point if I’ll just break it

Best of time’s when I have to take it

On my own terms is how I’ll make it

I’m doing fine and you can’t shake it

I’m off the charts n’ you can’t rate it

So please let me be or I will regret it

Eat my cake n have it cause I bake it

Opposition crumbles cause I flake it

Unleash the dragon but don’t wake it

I’m not happy when I try to fake it

Akpan

Who They Want

Courtesy: UNHCR/Dominic Nahr

This is the seventh in a poetry series created from lyrics of musical classics.

The piece you are about to read begins with the seventh line of the song “Easy” by Lionel Richie.

Everybody wants me to be who they want me to be.

But I’m just swingin’ and making merry being myself.

They talk such trash around me it’s hard to imagine

Not feeling put away like a bird stuck in its cage cell

But I defined myself for myself no doubt cause I am

This close to decoding an overdrive translation of me,

They spit every answer in the form of a questionnaire

It’s complicated to escape but ama stand and stay free,

And stay true to the original plan it’s the only way I see

Myself crossing that river leaving behind this negativity,

Until I pull all the plugs I’ll never really dig the reason

Everybody wants me to be who they want me to be.

Akpan

Paid

Rose Lokonyen
Courtesy: @Refugees

This is the sixth in a poetry series created from lyrics of musical classics.

The piece you are about to read begins with the sixth line of the song “Easy” by Lionel Richie.

I paid my dues to make it

Thing is situation is yet to get with it

And there’s no way of going around it.

Can’t believe I’m doing this over again

It’s the craziest place for me to exhale.

Impossible to think I went thro all that

Only to have to bring nightmares back,

I’m incarcerated in a distorted déjà vu

I could wish the world was mine to rule,

But where is the fun if I am a deadbeat?

A different stroke of fate what do I do?

I paid my dues to make it.

Akpan

Chains on Me

Courtesy: Twitter

This is the fifth in a poetry series created from lyrics of musical classics.

The piece you are about to read begins with the fifth line of the song

 “Easy” by Lionel Richie.

Why in the world, would anybody put chains on me?

I’m not cut to the size of your fancy or built to please

I’m not molded by the consent of popular opinion,

I’m a superordinary me living in a superordinary union

With the myself in constant control of my next move.

I want to taste sweet freedom and wholesome creativity

Climb up to the next level sure I have nothing to prove

To anyone, it’s just me doing my thing captain of my ship.

I love to see my life as a city with a moat set about its walls

A fortress guarded by resolve and ramparts of resolution.

Let me be and soon you will see what this man can achieve

Why in the world, would anybody put chains on me?

Akpan

By the Lapels

Popole Misenga
Courtesy: @Refugees

This is the fourth in a poetry series created from lyrics of musical classics.

The piece you are about to read begins with the fourth line of the song

 “Easy” by Lionel Richie.

You see, I begged, stole and I borrowed

I got my priorities and focus zeroed ‘n.

Perched on the lip of a 10,000 foot drop

Every muscle and hair in my follicle’s worked up

I’m worked out but I’m still taking this fight to the limits.

Aint asking many questions just backed up by one reason;

I’m still breathing fire from residuum of cold clinkers.

If I lost everything, I gave it up to pull things back together.

Water breaks on my brow, salt hits my eyes produces tears

But you won’t see me coming cause I’m mo than these years.

Measure of my fears don’t amount to the aim of my goal

You see, I begged, stole and I borrowed.

Akpan

All I Can

Courtesy: UNHCR/Frederic Noy

This is the third in a series of poetry created from lyrics of musical classics.

The piece you are about to read begins with the third line of the song 

“Easy” by Lionel Richie.

Seems to me girl, you know I done all I can

I battled lions, raised my game to change the program.

Now my life is rearranged I aint drawing you a diagram

Things won’t stay the same so blame the pain.

I’m breaking loose from traits that got my brain in a cage

It’s not that easy but I’m trading my ache for gain.

It’s this life I chose to live; it’s the calling I gatto give,

Sticking around’s like battling a legion I gatto breathe-

Freedom baby, is of the essence and I’m gon’ get it anyway

I can, I can’t give up that spells suicide and I don’t play.

It’s my only way of taking the last stand

Seems to me girl, you know I done all I can.

Akpan

Leaving You

Courtesy: UNHCR/Achilleas Zavallis

This is the second in a series of poetry created from lyrics of musical classics.

The piece you are about to read begins with the second line of the song

“Easy” by Lionel Richie.

Girl, I’m leaving you tomorrow.

Give your best kiss to mama tell her I said so

It’s cold out there on the routes I’ll plow

But I aint much good to you if I hung around

Think of me as your own human anchor;

That person you let go when you need him most.

I may never find my way back home again

I don’t even have a roadmap for the journey I make,

I make no promises I only hope you’ll understand

Someday when you ripen into a full-blown woman

I’m sorry baby but there’s something you must know;

Girl, I’m leaving you tomorrow.

Akpan

Can't Stand the Pain

Courtesy: UNHCR/Andre McConnell

This is the first of a series of poetry created from lyrics of musical classics.

The piece you are about to read begins with the first line of the song “Easy”

by Lionel Richie. In the next six or seven poems I’m going to pick subsequent

lines of that great song to jump-start each new piece.

I know it sounds funny but I just can’t stand the pain.

The sun’s pitched at 12 o’ clock but the storm won’t abate

It’s rage all over; I’m several miles into this insanity

When all hell spills over who’s gon’ set my soul free?

I was halfway there before they blew the final whistle

Not that I was late in coming; my effort wasn’t useful.

I crossed the river so many times I lost count already.

How much longer before my dreams hit the cemetery?

I wonder what it takes to last in this fading existence,

If anything besides pain can lay claim to consistence

If there’s no point of reference, aint no reason to aim.

I know it sounds funny but I just can’t stand the pain.

Akpan