Covid-Related

Courtesy: UNHCR

Darkness falls across the land,

Shooting straight from the East;

From the pockets of Wuhan,

A plague spat from the belly of the beast

A chip of the Apocalypse

Surrounds you in its mist

Then punch you in the gut

With a iron fist

That throws your windpipe into lock. 🔒 

The Reaper awaits with his scythe,

His footsteps alien and lithe. 

You gotta be Spiderman

Or you's a dead man:

Wear a mask, 😷

Wash your hands,

And hog your distance.

Last year, there wasn't no Christmas 🎄

It would be a shame if Santa Claus

Was down with the Corona. 

If we all could share love

On the same level we caught the virus:

With a hug, 🤗

Thro a cough,

In a simple touch,

We'd stare wars

Down and call its bluff. 

We'll tear down walls

By a sneeze n' a stomp. 

But even tho we y'all separated

We still Covid-related. 

We can do this

Heart to heart ❤️we'll knock this.

Roll out the vaccines for everybody,

People of all nationalities

Let's include the refugees,

Together, we'll erase this disease. 

Akpan

Residual

Abdo, Lebanese IDP
Photo Courtesy: UNHCR

We y'all smug

As froth in a mug.

And we don't even ask why

Our moment of truth resides in a lie. 

Our days go boom,

Our nights is gloom.

One man brings harm with guns

While the other's armed with bombs.

Our sunset on Tigray,

Here's where the moon fell down,

And here, and here. Kale's the entrée. 

We love that sound

It's the rhythm of death pangs.

Hell's busybody gang

Pitched tent

In the place where we are;

Love's spent.

A blow will mend a scar.

Akpan

All She Wants

Courtesy: UNHCR
Click on the link in the image/text. Thanks. 

All she wants

Is not some Jack 'n a box

Or an epiphany shot from a canon

Not even a boy

Who brings the noise,

To keep as a toy.

All she wants

Ain't a fairytale ploy,

And she don't play coy

Cause she ain't no Helene of Troy. 

All she wants

Is a doctor

For a boy both deaf and dumb

And who's rather stuck in his bunk. 

Meanwhile, she'll get an education

Our lady of valor,

So she could be her brother's physician. 

See all she wants

Is not the the wand of a magician

But a chance

To be the shero of her circumstance. 

All she wants

Is not to pull a stunt.

She's just a refugee,

Dying for the rarest opportunity:

To redeem the cause of her family,

Her own corner to serve humanity. 

All she wants

Is to feel needed,

To restore her dignity. 

That's all she wants,

Cause on her inside way deep down,

She knows everybody counts. 

Akpan

Empathy Mode

Courtesy: UNHCR

Don't breathe a word

Just cuddle me to your heart.

I long for silent comfort

Till shredding fear becomes art. 

Let our heartbeats

Sound a blended discord

While one runs the scales

Let the other hammer the chords. 

Let our breathing raise a chorus

As we inhale the pause,

Let our exhales be the crescendo

And our chestheaves even out the tempo. 

Sing me like a song

Stroke me like ebony and ivory

On your digital keyboard

Wrap up my broken tones in harmony. 

If only you'd cuddle me to your heart.

It's all I ask

And more than I could ever ask. 

Akpan

Quietude

Courtesy: Twitter (@novelicious)

Alone in the silence

I dare to touch the hem of Your garment.

Alone with Your Presence

I choose to cherish this moment. 

Alone as all alone

At the Right Hand of God,

Alone with the fullness of Your voice,

All alone designed by personal choice. 

Alone drinking in pleasures evermore,

I eat my fill of the bread of Your House.

Alone where no evil may come,

I'm amazed to see Your grace abounds. 

Alone with You in this silence,

Alone complete in infinite oneness. 

Akpan

Where You Go To Know You're Alive

Click the image to get there. 
Courtesy: UNHCR

Love is a place in your heart

Where you go to know you're alive.

All you do is press start

And soon you're eating up the miles.

Love can be anything

Can't nothin'  be love but love;

It's the smile you give a kid,

In the whisper of 'Refugees Welcome.'

In that space,

Friendship has a face,

Sharing holds the ace,

And compassion wins the race.

There are no walls

To block feelings between us.

If we can be there

For each other, show we care,

We'll get there. 

Akpan

Gon' Be A Great Day

Rohingyan Boy with Sesame Street Muppet
Courtesy: UNHCR

It's gonna be a great day today

I don't know what else to say

But this much is my take;

The weather's as good as it gets

So ama suck in a lungful of breath,

Then step out on the exhale. 

It's gonna be a great day today.

The sun plugged the leak of rain

So ama put the wind in my sail,

Ain't letting this feeling in a cage

I'm gonna bust these bars of rage,

It's gon' be a great day today.

Akpan

Trying To Survive The Night

Courtesy: UNHCR

Don't wanna know how the sun

Travels round the moon.

And seriously speaking, I'm not

In the complicated mood

For a geography of tall stories.

I'm bringing my theory

Down to earth,

To us grounded in a hearth.

I'm all about the chemistry

Of self-annihilation

I'm up for a study in human tragedy

On which the race of man is sprung.

Bring out all the bombs

Throw some Uzi in the lineup,

It's the school of hard knocks.

Love don't live here.

This is where gore rocks,

Where pregnant women flee for fear.

Here it's ok to kidnap girls for ransome,

To hold school boys hostage

Even if it's just to prove a point.

Hope we still on the same page?

In point of fact, why not lose the book,

We all know these things get cooked?

Let's do this by word of mouth,

Why the river of humanity flows south.

We slot peace in the ballot box

And then harvest absolute bollocks.

It's trend of the time

And we blend 'n grime,

Now here's something we gatto do

This depends on me as you;

Shoot your hands in the sky

If you've seen enough people die. 

Akpan

If MLK Was Here Today

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If MLK was here today

They'd start a cult in his name

And make his creed drip hate.

They'd mutilate his 'dream'

Behind the walls of a smokescreen

If MLK was here today,

The world'd be a better place

Cause his words will be a mace

For all who believe,

Who would find a reason

To knock down this treason.

If MLK was here today,

We'd plow this field of gray

And make compost

Of yesterday's ghosts. 

In which we'd plant homegrown dreams

And grace would flow like a never-ending stream. 

But we seeds of MLK

For we are all God's children

If we use his words to make a change

And build back better brethren. 

If MLK was here today,

It ain't mean zilch if we have not love.

Gotta write the vision and make it plain

Then we may run with it and transform

This one world cause it's all we got. 

Akpan

To The First Raindrops In 2021

Courtesy: @Novelicious (on Twitter)

As night must make way for the day

So also the sun retreat for the rain

Although the sun tapped out

A while before the waters trickled down.

Yesterday witnessed the first raindrops

Of the brand new year 2021

But it was sort of a shortfall

Cause I saw more of the windstorm

Than the announced rainstorm.

Aside, it kinda caught me on the job

And for me, that was the worst bit,

The only thing of note off the scene

Was the dammed huff n' puff

And there I was

Trapped like one of 'em fabled three

Piglets stuffed in a straw hut

Hanged out to dry in the absence of a sun.

Akpan

50 Shades Of Tigray

Nigsty, an Ethiopian refugee who
ran to Sudan while pregnant. 
Courtesy: UNHCR

Updated: January 6th, 2021, 09:20AM

Here I am

Dabbing 50 shades of Tigray

With rapid strokes teasing dark clouds pregnant

Banishing every promise of sunray.

I'm painting my story

On a easel for display

In the soul's gallery

Fine-tuning the horror to bright as day:

Three labored days on the road to Sudan

An expecting, hungry and haunted mother

Prayed, “God, keep my baby in,

Until I set foot in an inn

Even if it's one with the windows punched in.”

Soon Nigsty mothered her daughter

And said, “my hope is that my baby

Can return home safely.”

Up there against the lighter shade is Ngesti

A refugee scholar

Turned teacher in a strange land

Honing her skills making kids young scholars.

You can almost hear that lil homs

Whisper, “I miss home.”

Yesterday, Tsige had a heartful of hope

Today, she sleeps on bare ground

Without a change of wardrobe;

She told her fam they had to ditch town

Dreams of a better life,

Her children's higher education all left behind.

Higher up on the canvas

The picture starts to fade

But alas!

Tigray's skyline is a firework of gray.

Akpan