A Piece Of Broken Moon

One-third of schools in Haiti have been destroyed
or damaged by an earthquake.
Please help get education back on track,
Donate: https://uni.cf/3maQKLj

A shard of shattered glass

Conveys the sentence of doom

In the toppled blocks of a class

Thru a piece of broken moon,

Stark remnants of gloom

When things fell down flat.

‘Stay-at-home' was mastered

To something of a craft

When an earthquake rode thru town

And gave it a runaround.

School structures came tumbling down

A cruel blow to the eased lockdown

People got trapped underground

Screaming then fade to no sound

A 7.2 magnitude

With an overblown attitude

Made buildings crumble

And pounded hopes to rubble,

There's always a shrapnel of faith

After the storm has spent its rage

Lurking in a tucked away cage,

Waiting for its unique prison break

Big dreams are made of these

Be the reason they can relate,

Bind the wound where it bleeds

We can help children believe

So the past need not be relived.

Akpan

I Am Not Osama

Please Donate visit: https://unh.cr/611ce1e8124

I am not Osama

I didn't topple The Twin Towers

To put Afghanistan

On the world map

I am not the Islamist,

A muslim fundamentalist

What I mean is

I am not a terrorist

And I do not deserve any

Of the things happening to me

Because I am not Osama

I didn't bring on my dilemma

Because I am not the Taliban

A cousin to Al Qaeda

That's why I live in absolute fear

As imminent death draws near

Because I am not Osama

Who implicated Afghanistan

But I am Afghanistan

Who betrayed Osama

And welcomed the Allies

Yet once again, Talibanised,

The world has abandoned me

To the hands of those who mistreat

Me and profit from my misery,

To the fate of a hasty retreat,

War rapes my land with impunity

I am not Osama

I am not a mad man

Enslaved by thoughts of

World domination

Who triggered a crisis of

Significant proportion.

Please, cut the blame game

I'm in dire need of critical aid

I am Afghanistan

I am a million children

Crying out from the bleachers

A circumstantial evidence

Of a game of role reversal

Gone awfully wrong.

I need humanitarian support

While all hope is not lost

I am Afghanistan

I am the voice of the free woman

Caught up in the trap

Of being married off to claptrap

I am a man

Who's lost every reason to stand

Every claim

To earn my daily bread.

I am Afghanistan

Don't turn your back,

Don't color me bad.

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

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

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

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

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