A Mission Falsely Called 'Impossible'

We have stealthily achieved our Midas years,

We, trigger of a black revolution,

Clamber up the plains of a tumultuous pyramid

To find the base for a new resolution.

There were times, and those were tough times,

When we underestimated the impossible.

Standing in this place, we can say with courage, “we rise!”

For we’re still one nation on a mission falsely called ‘impossible.’

Akpan

Down in History

You may take all the time you want

Find yourself a rattan and pull it to the front.

Set yourself up and hear me spin my metaphors.

Know, beyond doubt’s shadow that the least of these

Are true acts of courage that will go down in history.

Give me your hand, let me walk you thro corridors

Of wrenching pain refined by the fires of valor.

Listen closely as I whisper oracles of a future

Untouched by fear, of a people toppling boundaries.

And acknowledge that these must go down in history.

A nation of millions seeks new beginnings,

Marching in time to a democratic Valhalla.

Unity binds us up and defines our entities

And we, like unfolding promises take a stand.

Bet you see distinctly, why this is going down in history.

For half a century, this family chose to hang on.

Plowing the turbulence and staying on course,

We found a voice of our own in an unsettling world.

It takes a hero’s heart to take risks and succeed,

And now, you know why these events must go down in history!

Akpan

Stifled Maelstrom

The past tears came upon a nightmare scream,

As horrific as a scar-face crime scene.

Some over-exposed it like a strip of film

And flung mud on fabrics of a great dream.

Now a modern phoenix rises from its ashes,

Pounces on Zephyr to glimpse fantasies,

Soon-to-be tapestry of our realities.

Galleries of fabled feats mark our bush track:

Fallen legends and rising heroes,

Pungent pointers to a stifled maelstrom.

Akpan

Daring the Storms

Kites of hope are daring the storms,

Lovin’ feelin’ is catching like a virus.

Ships of promises drop anchor on our shores

Doubtless, bringing sheaves of our father’s toil.

Chains of heroics link our ancestry knot to knot

Shattering clouds of ill that blurs our vision.

We press in the strides of our marathon,

Clogging the gap with faith that pelts like rock.

We are a people that will march on.

A nation that will thrive with passion.

Akpan

Vineyard

When I shout, 'Nigeria!'

I am not government-praising.

When I say, we have arrived,

It’s got nothing to do with politricks.

When I state how we survived,

I am talking the individual.

It is never about the government.

The people are a nation’s vineyard,

The greatest constitutions are unwritten.

Like the code syncing rhythms of our heartbeats,

Or the affection that unites a family.

We, the people, are the constitution.

We are the cause for celebration.

Akpan

Stolen Voices

Silence of stolen voices

Beg the national question.

Evil taunts remembrance of liberty,

Dredging up a can of past transgressions.

Clouds of stench assault us with a sense

Of shame we can neither deny nor hide.

Gloom stalks us in his wakefulness,

Reminding us we’ve been living a lie.

Is this the ‘promise of the rust?’

Cause if it is, it aint much fun.

We have waited in vain

And indeed deserve the shame.

Akpan

Multiply

The kids in the bus mentioned in the first line were
released sometime after I posted this poem, unharmed.

Why would anybody snatch a school bus?

Unless the architects are psychos, of course.

Why go so far to hurt a baby’s smile

In a time the nation ought to unite?

But we have survived worse things.

And this setback will only make us multiply.

Yes, we will make it thro this,

And the world will see that still we rise.

Akpan

Atom of Hope

We beat our tracks back to the highway

And find intimations of privileges come to play.

In the scheme of things, an atom of hope is pivotal,

Like a band of metaphors strapped to a verse of poetry.

A hundred million destinies marinate in the cauldron.

The pleadings of urgency wake the cries of the dawn.

Tomorrow hurries up, with pregnant clouds, bringing sheaves.

A million seeds arise to take the lead and will achieve.

Akpan

We Sure Have Tales to Tell

Hell ride

That phrase defines our travails.

Affection shed in the night time,

Groping in darkness in broad day.

We sure have tales to tell.

Sheets of joys and laughter,

Of downs and defeats as well.

We all ought to be mad and bitter.

But here’s the truth we uncovered

From beneath the piles of rubble:

We, the people, are better together.

Akpan

Called By Your Name

I find it a continuing privilege

To be called by your name,

To be tied to your ancestral strings

And be revived under your shades.

Hopes of dead heroes and sheroes

Come shouting from another place.

I wasn’t there to hoist the first flag,

I rise now to erase that fact!

Akpan

Comet's Tail

Distance has an enchantment

Rivaled only by the plots of a fairytale.

All who judge you from afar

Were barely lucky to glimpse the comet’s tail.

Akpan

Deep

The truth we seek

Often lie in conflict with opinion.

Our questionings and objections may collide

On impact with the message of the clarion,

Rousing us from childish comforts of our sleep

Into daylight that runs deep like still streams.

The answer we seek is in the wind of our change;

Our anniversary is premise on which to build a new state.

Akpan

Black Nation

Those things I used to hate about you,

Have come to be those that define you,

Ugly shades sown in threads of mystery.

You have indeed thrived above your misery.

There’s no doubt about it, you have won.

After fifty bumpy years, you are still One

Indivisible, multicultural, black nation.

Akpan

Anniversary of Victories

A hero stands.

His heart does not falter

At the appearance of storms,

Cause he’s been thro it before.

He knows the ropes and invokes skill at every turn.

He’s like a poet who has mastered metaphor,

He is trained in the principal of reverse.

For a hero is he who has fought and lost 10,000 times;

He is that one who would rather throw in his all

Than consent to defeat, lay back and die.

A hero keeps on trying and trying and trying

Until he chances the golden anniversary of victories.

Akpan

Loyalty

What is the measure of life?

Is it to live or die for home and country?

Is it to throw in my all when we ride

And watch gales of laughter weave

Our essences in knots of harmony?

What is the measure of life?

But the moments that lift the thrust of our flight?

The seconds that show us who we really are,

The instances that reveal where our loyalty lies.

Akpan

The Baton

Time is heard on distant hills

As it echoes tales that peel the heavens.

The universe stands still

At the mention of the name.

Heroes past voiced glories of the same.

Now the time has finally come,

When a young generation takes that baton

And runs with it

To uphold her honor and sovereignty,

And verse intimations of her immortality.

Akpan

Feels Real Good

I feel another breeze,

An association with delights.

I feel my senses freed

To explore details of what lies

Beneath the makings of history.

And I am willing.

I yield explicitly.

To know you, Nigeria,

To sing the praise of your name,

And come to taste of your aura,

And be thrilled by the rise of your fame.

I feel another breeze.

I know the definition of release.

I rise on effects of euphoria,

And it feels real good to be Nigerian.

Akpan

Tangible Reverie

Stolen mysteries

Wake and break upon our horizons.

We are witnessing tangible reveries

And our faculties spill out in raw emotions.

We cannot fight it.

There are few things men can’t successfully conceal,

One is untainted joy rooted in accomplishing.

It’s like trying to ignore solar rays piercing your eyeballs.

We have agonized and felt inevitable birth pangs.

Time’s sands are streaked by the footprints of our struggles.

Today, we announce our victories with a bang!

A phoenix splinters surface of the ashes of his rubbles.

Akpan

Month of October

In these parts of the universe,

Whenever we chance the month of October,

It rolls in on the peals of thunder.

A genesis was conceived fifty years before.

Many a days, weeks, months, years bear record.

There’s a resonance of jubilation.

Slivers of joy weave a dance to the notion.

It’s the dawn of great expectations,

Of unconnected paths but one destination.

Akpan

Change Waits

A ring of beauty

Surrounds the tapestry of yesterday.

As we remember the victories

We embrace the arrival of today.

There’s a feeling in the air

It overwhelms doubt and fear.

It’s a feeling that we can go on,

That change waits for us

We only need to push forward

And take the horrors off our minds,

Save our strength to take that step across the line.

Akpan