Upward Mobility

Courtesy: Pexels

Ama keep holding on

Cause I believe in love

I'm pressing forward

Forgetting the past, I run

Towards the goals before my eyes

Till I wrap my fingers around

The Mark of the Prize,

I'm holding faith down

I've set my eyes on my High Calling

And I'm keeping up my upward mobility.

Akpan

Humanitarian

“Today we pause to remember all those UNHCR colleagues and aid
 workers whose lives were taken from them in the
course of their humanitarian work. ”
— Fillipo Grandhi, UN High Commissioner For Refugees.
13 UNHCR staff members lost their lives to Covid-19,
 this poem is tribute to their lives of selfless service to humanity.

There was so much hope,

Many found strength to cope,

Cause they lent a hand to hold

When war shoved folks in the cold,

And situation turned cutthroat

When Covid rocked the boat.

They had hearts of gold

And a handful of bold

And now that their tale's told,

Their legend will never grow old.

There are acts so dope

They stretch thru time

Like a subcutaneous rope

And men of all ages are inclined

To let the story unwind

If only once in their lifetime,

Of the one and three

Who gave it all up for refugees.

The heart never forgets to remember

It will rekindle the ember

Of memory in the cold of December.

Here's to the selfless thirteen

UNHCR aid workers lost to Covid-19.

Akpan

Starless Midnight

Maya, Syrian child refugee.
More than half of forcibly displaced persons are children
 15 years old and under. — unhcr.org

Bound to a starless midnight

They wish for just one night

If only to breathe a desperate sigh,

Searching for hope in a forlorn sky

A darker cloud as sign

That things could have been worse,

A cold-fate-endorsed

Scenario to commensurate their loss.

Acquainted with sorrow

Their streams of tears convey tomorrow,

Born in exile

Like Moses riding the Nile

A habitat for crocodiles,

Or forcibly displaced

But anywhichways 

They're helpless preys.

Tragedies don't acknowledge kids

And kids ain't built

To ride the storms of conflicts.

They are victims,

Weak and vulnerable like sucklings

In the vortex of an ill wind,

Who've been thrown headlong

Into a dehumanizing war

Of which nobody asked their opinion,

Nor received their permission.

What does the future hold

If tomorrow is stripped to the bone?

Akpan

House Of Glass

Tigrayan refugee children waiting in line for breakfast.

For months, the Ethiopian army and its coalition partner Eritrea have been creating famine by destroying everything essential for human survival – food and farms, clinics and hospitals, water supplies – and blocking humanitarian aid. Mass killings have been documented by human rights organisations. The Telegraph obtained – and verified – shocking video footage of Ethiopian soldiers rounding up and murdering a group of young men. Soldiers have raped thousands of women and girls, subjecting many of them to extraordinarily cruel torture. There are tens of thousands of unaccompanied children, their mothers either held captive in army camps or sheltering in safe houses and clinics, traumatized and terrified, and not knowing what has happened to their little ones. — Telegraph.co.uk

 

Living in a house of glass

Presumes the resident's character

Is a house of class,

And a shade deeper than his avatar.

That's a nod to you, Ethiopia,

Eating yourself up like cancer

Working a body against its organs.

You dash your people's hearts

Against the bedrocks

To your personal hurt,

Have you counted the cost?

Cause this is the shoe nail

That got a Kingdom lost,

Cause what you got

Is multinational aid workers

Totally getting offed,

With constant closure of your borders

When fighting intensifies to stall

Access to humanitarian assistance

Proves y'all stuck on the comeuppance

Eritrean soldiers are bringing up the rear

And hell may care

If Tigray's strung on a repeat nightmare.

I thought y'all used to be one nation?

Why y'all in a hurry to suck

On one and the other's blood?

Why can't y'all just get along?

Akpan

No Words

Three Doctors Without Borders medical charity
employees were found killed in a brutal act of murder.
This is for aid workers, Maria Yohaness and Tedros.
Photo Courtesy: msf.org

No words

Can convey our shock

No words

Can soothe the loss

And suffering of the loved ones

Of aid workers, Maria, Yohaness

And Tedros,

To whom we relay our condolences.

Cut down in Ethiopia's Tigray region

In a brutal act of murder,

No words

Can portray this cruel slaughter.

The three aid workers who died

Were in Tigray saving lives,

And they paid for their work

With an heroic sacrifice.

No words

Can paint the gruesome attack

On the spanish, Maria

And the two Ethiopians,

Yohaness and Tedros

Cause the act goes beyond words,

No Words

Should be spared in the execution

Of a peaceful resolution

In Ethiopia's Tigray region.

Still no words

Would sound sweeter

Than we got the murderers

Chained down in tethers.

Akpan

Critical Race Theory

Many American schools have banned or tried to, the teaching
of  the Critical Race Theory to their students.

 

Let's talk Critical Race Theory

Let's blow off some steam

Offload this hypothetical bullshittery

See if we can be a team.

Let's measure the distance from white

To the color called black

Make it plain like the white

Running down the middle of the track.

Why did they build bridges

That fly over black communities,

To connect illustrious neighborhoods

And expect us to see good in the hood

When the system don't feel the heat

Cause they put the claptrap on repeat.

All the major highways

Seem to keep running a-ways

From quarters of the black race.

How does a system

Raised on white superiority

Complex deliver on the long-term

On issues of racial equality?

We perish

Cause the things we cherish

Take us thru college

But fall short of the supply

Of the appropriate knowledge

To make us all see eye to eye.

Let's talk racism

And all negativism

That keep blacks from the

Rise to the top of the food chain

Let's talk about Juneteenth

And the point of the new holiday,

If the history it celebrates

Does nothing to exonerate

The folks it emancipates.

My point is we need new laws

Rising from knowledge of

Equality of all racial colors

We y'all need to understand

The basis of the Critical Race Theory

Or we'd be shooting blanks

If we ain't armed as a blue ribbon jury.

Akpan

Refugees Make The world Go Round

Today's World Refugee Day
Image Courtesy: UNHCR

Refugees make the world go round

Same world tried to run 'em aground,

So we celebrate World Refugee Day

Cause everyday is a murder day

Not cause everyday's a holiday,

Ethnic cleansing is kids at play

And cruel wars have come to stay,

But we'd celebrate for no reason

And joy would be vague n' a treason,

If we wasn't celebrating people

Fleeing home

Where violence became a staple,

People who reached out to hope

When hope dug a hole

In their soul

And shooed 'em out in the cold.

And now they're raising a torch

In the thick of our darkness,

To guide the world

With the light of their brightness

Cause only together with refugees

Can we really heal

The horror that slithers in the still

Of the night when dreams are starlit,

Only together can we learn

To mend the broken cistern

And combine a beam of 10,000 lights

To ignite each other to shine

In a world where refugees

Compete in the Olympics

Like the swimmer called Yusra,

Are helping to fight the pandemic,

Fighting for youth rights like Aya,

And Ramatulahi who's a lawyer,

Making aviation history like Ghazal

And there's a lady who's a doll maker,

The Olympian who's a mental health worker,

And of course, the professional footballer.

Refugees are writing their names in gold

On the cosmic walls of this globe.

Akpan

Juneteenth '21

Juneteenth commemorates emancipation of African-American slaves on June 19, 1865
Today, President Biden signed a bill declaring it a US National Holiday.

There's a brand new holiday

A prophetic hallelujah day,

Cause ain't nobody dig freedom

Like a man who's been a slave

Ain't nobody crave a destination

Like the man on the inside of a cage,

So as we descend the mountaintop

On the Canaan side

The Promised Land awaits us,

With the tears in our eyes

And with open arms we receive

The Glory of the coming

Of the Lord,

Cause we've been free

And we've been crushed,

But nothing can compare

To this beauty revealed in us.

The mountains are laid bare

And the dreams of our fathers,

The hopes of our mothers

Fill up the valleys of despair

Now on June 19th of every year

We mark a holiday for freedom.

Juneteenth is the new word

A worthy trade for emancipation

Of the people of color

And everybody who loves freedom.

Akpan

Refugees Are People

The official 29 members of
The IOC Refugee Olympic Team
participating in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics
Courtesy: The UNHCR YouTube channel

Refugees are people.

Feed that to your mental input device,

Refugees are people,

Not some three blind mice

Kids poke to see how they run,

Real people scorched by fires of war

Whose hearts assumed a charred tone.

Just so you know,

Refugees are no invertebrate-

Queered mammals with no backbones,

Let that thought percolate

And there'll be no bones

About acknowledging a humanity

Beamed by a deep and inventive personality,

Although, we're called 'refugees,'

We're a people pumping redemptive energies

We strive to extort our past

By making sacrifices that last.

We're going the whole nine yards

And this ain't no thin gruel,

We're pleased to present a world class

World record breaking crew,

Drumrolls please...

The IOC Refugee Olympic Team.

That's proof there's more to “Refugee"

Than the downtalk that meets your ear,

“This is going down in history,

And our names will be there.”

Akpan

DRC Need You

Displaced Congolese kids having a meal at a UNHCR Refugee Camp

Please Assist

Like Breonna was sleeping

When the cops came creeping,

So it came to pass in the DRC,

All was silent and still

When Nyiragongo crept on the scene,

Wasting lives, slaying animals,

Razing farms, spewing lava

Sending people fleeing over

The border into Rwanda.

When a volcano erupts,

Men pay a deadly cost

And it's only human

To lend a helping hand

To show a little kindness

To a thousand displaced Congolese

Journeying back from Rwanda

And cushion the thunder

Putting the people under

And their hearts will be stronger

And their days grow longer

And all their memories fonder.

Share the wonders of love,

Knead your attitude

Hello, world

The DRC needs you.

Akpan

I Still Have Dreams

Eldric Sella
Competing in Boxing at the Tokyo Olympics
as a member of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team.
Photo Courtesy: unhcr.org

I still have dreams

Though my sorrow never sleeps

Still contending with the streams

Of tears and silent screams,

I still have dreams

Making miracles on bended knees

Decoding unsearchable mysteries

I still have dreams

Like the blue seas got shrimps

I still have dreams

I believe destiny's coming thru

I spy tomorrow n' it's all good,

I still have dreams

Even tho my past is grim,

And I'll keep on dreaming

Long after this madness done streaming,

I still have dreams.

I still have dreams

That what tomorrow brings

Is gon' up my blessings

My face is set like flint,

After dreams cease

And the universe peels

Apart at the seams,

I'll still have dreams.

Dreams of touching the sky,

Dreams of wrapping my fingers

Around the bulge of the prize,

Dreams of a uniquely better

Brighter, boosted kinda life

Dreams of being accepted as human,

Dreams to manifest the man I am

And having done all to stand

I still have dreams

That my dreams will birth realities

I still have dreams

That all of my tomorrows

Will nuke the weight of my sorrows

I still have dreams

I still have dreams

That these dreams will bloom

Right through the womb

And raise me up from the tomb

And enact Lazarus Impressions

Like a cup of fresh lime to thirst

These dreams I have

Will the Red Sea halve

Like a raised staff

Parting water to make dry land.

I still have dreams

That the world will see in me

A jewel of humanity,

Sowing seeds of creativity

To fashion scenes for posterity.

I still have dreams

Of churning my darkness to release

Me into a thousand beams

Of light that keep on shining

And shining and shining… 

I still have dreams

In the midst of these miseries

Surrounding me like the seven seas.

Akpan