Unlike Some People

Courtesy: @Flawolffie (Twitter)

People have no shame

They talk a good game

And stockpile the blame

Then when the winds change

They switch places

And turn on the hypocritical phases.

Their verbs are tame

Their fight is lame

Their manicured voices

Produce empty words

They feign noesis

With views twisted to absurd.

These people

That have no shame

Are becoming the staple

For throwing a shade.

Can't get their acts together

Cause they're strung one on the other.

Some people have no shame

It's why they still in the game

Long after the ovation fades.

They trade one excuse

Only to promote laws that confuse,

And when their gang of losers lose

They jump ship and ditch their crews.

I don't know, mate

But some people have no shame.

Akpan

Cabo Delgado Desperados

They had dreams of becoming doctors and teachers.
But after an armed attack on their town in northern
Mozambique, they now fear for what their future holds.
                                                 — unhcr.org

And then you climb the hill

One step trailing the previous stint,

Bludgeoned by an unforgiving wind,

Only to find on the plains

Of the fruits of faith,

A daunting, towering mountain.

The hill you climb

Are stuff that blind

You so it's hard to find

The mountains are in your mind.

Just forget the things left behind

And face the boulders on the inside,

They're the logs stuck in your eye

That make you grapple with a pie

And sway you from the mark

Of the prize.

You do not need a Mack

To move the sands of time,

If you see a ghost,

You'll dissolve like tissue in rain

And if you know the ropes,

You can fly a mountain.

A city on a hill

Got no uses for a smokescreen,

If you ain't out for a kill,

You got no uses for your skill.

The hill is meant to get you under,

Freeze you in your track

Like a snake named anaconda.

The hill you climb

Is key to unlock your mind

Keep on grinding your grind

And you'll breathe your dreams to life.

Akpan

Long Lasting Love

Courtesy: pbs.org

If we'd step way back

Like a throwback

If we could lay back

In the eternal arms of love

And all was well with the world.

If we adopt peace

As a product of justice,

If we toss in a piece

Till wrath is appeased

And end violence on our streets,

Identify the enemy,

The bombsight of the beast

We gon' solve this chemistry,

Unmask the poltergeist.

If we trade the noise

For the sound of one voice,

We'll elect a golden choice,

Defeat this pandemic

And obtain victory that's epic.

Let the lifeline

Pay out like

A bust of fresh lime,

Quit chasing the dime,

It makes you a ball of slime.

If love is your pantomime

Then your life will rhyme.

Be Love, it ain't a crime

Hate's a greater pandemic

Wreaking worse ill than Covid

That's wasting millions, it's pathetic.

So step back

Lend a helping hand

To folks on your path

See if it don't come back.

Akpan

World War C

Refugee mother and child riding
a bike. In most countries, refugees are
excluded from Covid vaccinations.
Photo Courtesy: UNHCR

While men slept

His enemy crept

Up and sowed weed

Among the wheat.

And with morning came

A marauding plague

Of death and decay,

Making broken hearts reacquaint

The process of pain.

The extinction of the race

Is imminent

And Covid-19's now resident.

Folks be booking hospitals

Crawling all over the reception,

Like it's some exotic hotel's vestibule.

ICU Waiting Lists stretch long

Like the book of damnation

Cause patients sucking up oxygen

Faster than plants breed pathogens.

Refugees are the hardest hit

Cause they're denied nationality,

Nobody gives a pin

If they're healthy or sick.

But what if this Virus is man-made?

What if our research steps are ordained?

And we're programmed

On a wild goose chasing our tail?

What if we're left flat on our ass?

Perhaps, hope

Is not the only thing we have,

We might yet, dare to be bold

Cause we may yet redeem man

From a wave of pandemic

That refuses to die

But multiplies variants like a tick.

We fight an enemy that outright

Wastes us with impunity.

Akpan

Chrome

Oshoala,
Winner of the UEFA Women Champions
League 20/21 with Barca Femeini

Here's a list

Of things flung in the mist

Or ought to be at least.

If you got the gist,

You best pump your fist.

Somethings you can't resist

Some genes can't not persist.

Stand up to the beast

Fear not in the least

Rise, like dough on yeast,

To the occasion, make a feast

Of the IQ of a pessimist

Wear your guts on your wrist

Fight injustice like an activist

Face off all the fascist

Keep believing in the face of atheists

You need this

A non conformist

Be a transformist

Straddle the East

Like the red riding beast

Punching the sky like a fist.

Be upfront

Hypocrites pull stunts

Boost your grits

And come to grips

Cause fate does flips

Record your episodes on clips.

Time to wake up

And drink a sip of your cup.

Take a ration

Of your mission

To completion

Every 24

Roll it like a 24

Inch chrome on a Ford.

Akpan

Variant

Photo Courtesy: Twitter (@AsimBjym)

How do they rest in peace

In the belly of the beast?

Racked by a killing, unfeeling disease

That got them cremating stiff

After stiff after stiff.

What court serves justice

Against a virus

That multiplies rigor mortis

Killing for no probable cause?

They breached the end

Of their ropes,

Ain't no need to pretend

India needs a vaccine overdose.

Initiate a vaccine roll out

Before a nation is wiped out.

A genius in medical science

Is dying of a Covid variant

In a tragic display of irony

Ravaged by a viral tyranny,

This is a test of the int'l community's

Empathy, loyalty and humanity.

Reach out to India

With an overdose of Modena

A sea of Astra-Zeneca

And a truckload of Pfizer.

Prophesy to the wind

And let the answer carry

On a thunder of wings

That delivers healing

On the arms of love unconditional,

Put an end to endless funerals

And toss this box of pandora.

Give access to vaccine

For all of India's masses.

Bring back the good years

Douse the flames of the pyres.

Akpan

West Bank

The Knotted Gun
Symbol of non-violence

What we have here

Is failure to communicate.

The outcome is Gaza's atmosphere

Is fed on Israeli infernal plate

And Tel Aviv is cooked raw

As Hamas Militants retaliate.

But how does anyone at all

Fall in love with cruel war

And another has a knack

For swimming in blood and gore?

Two cannot bulldoze a path

To peace and mutual consent

If their quest is tucked in a past

Rooted in some vague conquest.

The fight for land's

As old as the origin of clans.

We know 'bout Abraham

And his journey to Canaan

We heard 'bout his grandson Israel

Who birthed the 12 tribes of Israel

And all the way down to the Romans

Who razed down the temple in Jerusalem

And dragged into exile Jewish man and woman,

Then there was Ataturk Ottoman

And they raised the Al Aqsa

Where the Jewish temple did stand,

Along came Hitler,

The evil German Führer

Who made the Jews

Scamper for the only home they knew.

Switch to the modern day

And the very soil spews hate.

It's difficult

To forget a Holocaust

If someone

Wants your land at all cost.

Still we must remember

In this world we're all brothers

Y'all can share a border

And never be a bother

To one and another.

Y'all can knot a revolver

And have each other's shoulder.

You can make two states

And have sovereignty of your estates.

How long?

Long enough

To get off each other's case

And learn to share a space.

Akpan

Covid Origins

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the NIAID.
The timing of staff illnesses at the Wuhan lab has raised
questions about whether COVID-19 originated and evolved
in a natural environment, or at the Chinese facility.
Photo Courtesy: Getty Images

From a virology lab

In the province of Wuhan,

Site of unprecedented drama

And conspiracies, like sun

Rising in the ancient East,

Initiating the feast of blood

In the jaws of the beast,

A life-devastating virus

Of controversial origins

Cuts down the sons of men

To the tune of 3 million deaths

And we're still on it.

Still trying to contain it.

The WHO turned the lab

In Wuhan upside down

And still couldn't put a tab

On what went down.

Dr. Fauci now

Pointing to natural causes

Circular argument down-

Sizing it to artificial sources

Yet all the while

People of all nationalities die.

We perish,

Cause we lack knowledge

Hassled like Joe Pesci

On a Christmas Eve college,

Given a runaround

On our own side of town,

By the novel coronavirus

Known as SARS-CoV-2.

The origin still defies us

Infecting, via the CDC, up to

10,000 vaccinated folks too.

The race for a cure is going south

Who the hell let this thingk out?

Akpan

I Swim For Every Refugee

Yusra Mardini
Swimmer for The Refugee Olympic Team
In the Tokyo Olympics

When I swim

It's not just to flex my fin,

I'm holding it down for my Gs

I swim for every refugee.

When I plunge into a pool

My body becomes a tool

My mission's written on water

I'm writing a soul letter

Telling the world,

Here's a branch snatched from war

Still as good

As the best in the hood.

My skill ain't crude

Goes for the rest of my crew,

I am a refugee

Stroking a legacy

On the surface of a watery grid

Sowing seeds

So refugees may believe

And the world may agree,

If one refugee can swim

Then all refugees can achieve.

Akpan