Still Standing

I once saw a four year old on crutches he’s managed to use pretty effectively he didn’t look invalid. (He’s not the boy in this picture.) This poem is for him, if he would take a chance on life. I’m believing he would. This is also for me. April 16’s my birthday.

I feel my tongue loosen like a caged bird set free

As I taste the first fruits of enchanted poetry.

Indulge me for a sec., will ya? If you got the time.

Let me transport you on the train of my rhyme.

Nudge of inspiration breaks my paralysis,

Melting my numbness, she lifts me above controversies.

Forgive me if I dally a little too close to the lip of excess

But some things get in your system and set you off on a tangent.

Nothing succeeds like success

I should know. I’m nothing if not a duty pageant.

I am the drowning man clutching at a straw;

I am the one who’s lost everything but what?

I’m still standing.

I am neck-deep in water but I still got that one straw

I take the tiger by the tail and hang on.

People often wonder where my strength lies

Often surprised how I rode the lows to get to my highs.

I try to make them see I’m no empty vessel

Their faces tell they wouldn’t believe me if this was the gospel.

I am walking upwind

The point, I’d have you note, is I’m walking.

I have parted the storm clouds,

And I’ve seen the silver lining.

I pledge allegiance to hope, here and now

To keep coming every time I fall. Even when I’m crying

I’m still standing.

There’s a dream so real you can reach out and touch it.

I believe this like I believe in the certainty of tides and sunrise.

I’ve roamed the pits so long my fears became shallow,

And my fascination with death shrunk to a shadow.

I am the voice of one yelling from the hardpan;

I am the strength of a dying, desperate man.

I put up with the sting of rejection;

Stuck out beneath the weight as I battled depression.

For several years, I braced amazing disgrace;

I’ve fallen down time and time and time again.

While I may not be your prototype testimony,

My story must have sprouted a tumor of memory.

Still stomping . . .

Still counting . . .

Still standing.

Akpan

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Battlefield

I’ll have my destiny, if you please:

Not an open sesame,

But that unique individuality

Born of Divinity’s ingenuity.

If it leads me thro’ valley dark n’ deep

Or pastures green with peace

Well, that’s just on more detail

Riding hard on my back trail.

Nevertheless, I want my destiny.

I know there’s a race

I was born to finish.

I can almost feel

The glory of the calling I was born to fulfill.

It’s got the irresistible pull

Of a mission yet incomplete.

I will not be satisfied

Until I breach the finish line.

There’s a destiny,

There’s no denying it,

I was created to accomplish.

Without this I won’t be established.

I’m sick n’ tired of running with the pack,

I’m pulling through for something deeper.

I’m reaching for the mystery behind the cloud;

I want a unique destiny.

I’m not settling for no two-bit hypocrisy

And I damn ain’t quitting on me.

If time wraps up eternity

Until I lay hold on the immortal

Then don’t take it personal.

I ain’t afraid of what my future holds

If my fate is really what destiny molds.

Don’t tell me it ain’t all that

If it’s mine

You bet I want it bad.

Fools may sashay the rose-strewn path,

I guess it’s their birthright but I don’t play that.

I got the strength of character

To risk my balls and get my life on point.

I want my destiny,

I want the meanest particle;

I want to write my history,

Pencil the least article.

I want to bust forth from within the shadow

Riding inspiration’s neck as he rushes from bone to marrow;

Quickening the spirit to the soul,

Working the tissues as one complete whole.

I want to sink my roots into the sands of purposefulness

And I gatto reach out with my branches to welcome the fullness.

As I stem the course of my existence on the walls of fame

Driven by a fiery forge of faith.

Let me chart my fate.

Here I stay in this place

Seeking to know as I’m known.

But not likely when my heart is cold.

I want to be obsessed by my destiny

And my destiny possessed by me.

Excuse me, if I sound a bit cut up

It’s the things that define me that’s bottled up

By the codes of etiquette;

And the plugs that make me tick are splayed

As Thomas Copycat’s buffet.

That’s why I want a fiery destiny;

A map for life charted in hell’s basement,

Tested by fire and found unwanting.

I am decided I will be reconciled to my soul mate;

Lock hands with my identity and go out blazing.

This raw feel within, broiling

Rushing intense conviction sick for release

By the touch of destiny.

If I gatto give a life time,

Sooner or later, the blood always hits the wall,

I’ll offer it up with delight.

Who I will be I will be, somehow;

I want my destiny, anyhow.

Akpan

Beauty, Thy Name is Sepia

I actually did a minor editing on this poem. I believe the color (Sepia) serves the verse as a more universal theme than the place (Nubia). Hope it doesn’t hurt the message, though.

Beauty, thy name is Sepia!

A king's ransom from far-flung Sheba;

An apparition stowed away in a shade of pearly-gray.

I pronounce your name

Like a stolen child squealing, with nostalgia for its mama.

Hot shot like coals pulled out of blazing fire;

I relish your dead-of-night shade.

                       

Shadow of an immortal sun;

The tint under a copse of trees;

Riding time’s backtrail like King Tutankhamun;

And as mystery-ridden as the valley of kings.

I look to you with pride and a deeper sense of awe.

                       

Your colored reflection

Is stunning beyond complexion.

Has a mystic resonance, I swear

Cause Beauty, thy name is Sepia.

                       

I lo’ the way you control the multitude

Flossin’ that black attitude.

Positive Ethiopian

Who the winner?

The buddy with the sable attribute!

The world is your page

Grab your ink tray,

Stand true, ka-tet of Chaka Zulu;

Redemption of the tribe of Qunu.

The enchanted midnight sun;

Radiance of a Black Diamond.

                       

Who else would arraign all the charms of you?

Tho, a fool’s errand it comes across to a few?

The pleasure’s all mine

Cause Negro, you are so fine.

Black, the African identity;

A bough overleaping walls of nationality

Reminiscences of you send up a shiver

Better believe that my brown sugar

Cause Beauty, thy name is Sepia.

                       

Cloak of the night giving off its unique light;

A dusky shape against a deepening sky:

Tinge of the night that glitters.

Dark knight in black shining armor

Riding a grey mustang, armed with a Negro-spiration.

To your personality I declare my everlasting love;

The mystery and memory of Nok.

                       

Labors of heroes past;

Geniuses of African origin

Rise from their ashes

In deference to the blooming coffee tree.

For they knew not which way to go

If you did not twinkle so.

Image of a gifted race,

Complexion of sheer grace,

Abused by the trade,

Disrespected by the niggardly

But royal blood would not remain caged

We had to come once more on the throes of a dream:

Any color as long as it’s black,

Beauty, thy name is Sepia!

                       

From the West a black sun bobfloats

Flung up by the kiss of the black rose.

Ha, you are a spray of emerald on gray;

Gold dust of a rare blend and hued

Pride of the slave-

Glory of the sons and daughters of former slaves.

Tough stain of freedom,

Color of revolution.

                       

Abused and scorned tho’ you may be

Live down to no man’s expectations.

It’s justification for the sacrifices;

The high prize of emancipation.

Ride with that negritude attitude to your pride of place.

Let the world know you had to come once more.

Black soulja rage.

Patent of a third world cont.

But from the point that the last’s goin’ ta be first.

Emblem of kings of the ancient kingdom

I’ll flatter your cap with peacock feathers

Beauty, thy name is Sepia!

                       

Lineage of an African tribe

Pleasure of the African shrines.

Nature’s eclipse

Tradition’s relic

Swag of the negro skin

Sum total of his definitive characteristic

The shaded glory

Nugget of the soul origin.

Black kryptonite

I dedicate the waste of this mortal life

To vocal your tinted worth and wonder:

Beauty, thy name is Sepia!

                       

                       

Akpan