Day 3: Be Seein' You Around

It won't be long,
I'll find my way home
Thro this dark tunnel haunted
By a specter of gray ghosts.

I reach out with a song,
To a end that knows me
Yet, defies the grits of my balls;
Ain't no mercy for the hypocrite.

I turn up the heat.
I'll ride this vibe into the ground
And come up strong indeed.
In time, I'll be seeing you around.

Akpan

Day 20: Insensitivity

Courtesy: Jo Jackson 

When the lil’ stars lose their flicker

And we sparsely wonder;

When nameless emotions dicker

With our recesses ripping spirit and soul asunder;

At such times when abominable taboos ride

On the voice of perception inside;

When the caged bird cannot invent a tune;

When the phoenix will not resurrect

From the ashes of its ruin;

In a time when peace will corrupt

And the depravity daily renewed;

When the falcon pays no heed to the falconer,

Love becomes expendable as loss,

Great gain is offspring of lust.

Leaders abuse authority,

Ghettos are the symbol of class inferiority.

When baby boys end up in some guy’s refrigerators,

We all have become callous and casual conspirators.

These are the times which we all live in

And respond to and have obtained a most crafty insensitivity.

Akpan

NaPoWriMo 2013: Been There, Done That...

R U Game?

Phew! NaPoWriMo’s finally over and I can’t help thinking, all that rush. Waking up each day in the month of April to confront my journal and then hopping straight for the screen of my Samsung Notebook, in my attempt to translate verse to blog. Nevertheless, I suppose the real question is, “Was it worth it?” Hell yeah!

I experienced the warmth of poetry; I felt cuddled within the arms of forever and I almost hoped it would never end. But here we are…

It’s the month of May and since NaPoWriMo’s over and done with, the natural thing, it seems is to return to regular blogging. I don’t see that happening, yet. For me, anyway. May will be a really busy month; I’ll be sourcing material for my personal short story writing adventure, IntShoWriMo. That’s short for International Shorts Writing Month and it runs from June 1st through 30th. Last year, I called it NaShoWriMo, I had to change the name this time around for a reason I’d rather not disclose in this post.

Back to NaPoWriMo. I learned some new tricks and came off with a bolder faith in my style of poetry just because I participated in this year’s challenge. And I ended up blogging a few thousand words of poetry.

That’s it from me for now. It seems I got my hands full this month though, I’d really love to do some blogging before May sheds its skin and becomes June. Yeah, I’d love that.

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

Day 29: Soulforce

Photo: bhs.rcs.k12.tn.us

When you hit that personal terminal

All your wishes and hopes rush at you like wild animals.

You can even reach out and touch your dream.

Cause yeah, it becomes literally and practically animated.

There is a captivating fact about reaching destination;

It's a definition of the individual void of inessential interruption.

It’s the turning point of an entire life, the power of a billion suns

At your fingertips; the climax of fulfillment on the fringes of your mind.

Cause you have thru fear and trembling, gained a customized paradise.

As you wade in the water, the sensation gets you high,

You observe meaning in the dark side of the moon.

You have arrived and rivers of tranquility cuddle and pamper you.

Everybody falls for something at some point in the race of life.

It might dock you on a peaceful shore or haul in the storms of strife.

Still nobody dares deny the evidence of that special something; inspired

Just about the size of a morsel of desire,

That ignites your passion and overrides your senses like a consuming fire

Giving verve to your dreams and on rare occasions, exhibiting

A knack for running along and rendering you disarmed and incomplete.

I have stumbled on the verge of discovery

The surprising thing is I was slighted by the cause of searching.

What is it I search for?

That my soul will not exist but fall for?

If I am to nail it at every turn of the road, I cannot tell for sure.

But I must continue searching though it brings me to my knees.

Because it burns within my heart like hot embers, impossible to resist.

Once again, I’m headed down the long and winding itinerary,

The place where desire is born, not knowing exactly what I might find,

Yet determined to never give it up until I bind.

Because the tragedy is not to die but to be wasted.

No other ill could more effectively root on a crippled life.

I have pasted my ears to eternity and I wear my heart like a bracelet.

Akpan

Day 28: Somebodyness

Photo: citypress.co.za

I am at a point in my life where something needs to click for me.

I reckon since I’m stuck in this game, it’s time I define who I be.

Haste is not the point at the moment; I am in no hurry.

Though, time has become quite the care; I’m trapped in its workings

Like a sparrow in a cage.

I must take faith’s leap; I’ve arrived at the decisive stage,

Or sink into a calamitous river of ruin.

But first, I gatto learn to brave the ever-shifting wind of doctrine

Before they retrieve my bones six feet from under the Sahara’s dune.

This level marks a new beginning for the individual within;

I gatto find the one thing that will work but just for me.

Then, gladly plunge my soul into it.

If tomorrow takes forever in coming,

I’ll throw off the past, strap on my gear, and get the present going.

I would rather not entertain static and introduce the agony of rut into my years.

I hear the summons of purpose come thru crystal clear

I’m achieving everything I’m called to be, I feel I’m almost there.

Deeply in earnest, I am persuaded to declare:

I will allow no silly thing alter the chosen course of my rising

Until my destiny is complete.

I pursue a cause to get my life on point.

I cling to my karma like one would grasp at a principle.

In a time when all the functions are out of joint

Regardless of the sad hellos and sweet adieus in bogus chronicles

I present myself equal to the task and with every trampling, I rise.

I set the sun ablaze with the radiance of my aura, I’m beyond compromise.

Complete like a set of Divinity’s tools, I remain effectively unshakeable.

Predestined to a point I just can’t lose. It’s irrevocable.

But am I asking too much to be abandoned to my destiny?

Does it come across as an element of mutiny cause I seek the accomplished life?

Each time I ride the lonely path, how come I seem to inspire multiplied strife?

I’m just trying to play my part while constructing that unique personality

I’ve come to acknowledge as the real me in an endless sea of humanity.

I’m practically walking thru walls defying impossibility

But compromise seems to be the rule of the majority.

I asked to be left alone and you gave me a name.

Yet, you just can’t see me trudging thru on my own and that’s a shame.

Cause no human can perform the least instruction in the book of my destiny

Surely, not I, if I renounced my identity.

And here’s something all this rush has taught me to never forget:

And that’s besides glorying in the faith that looks thru death,

On the road to somebodyness the keyword is respect.

Akpan

Day 27: Conceit

Photo: chalkboardquotes.wordpress.com

A single road forked in a yellowed wood,

The unfolding read like a mellow book

For the visually impaired.

Open secrets are designed to trap all existing without a care.

So I pick up the pieces of the puzzles of the life

I discarded on my path to strife.

And I count my losses,

As I get off my high horses.

Retribution

Will be the reward of all machinery of persecution.

I lay down my baton

Like a beat up penitentiary warden

And pick up my courage,

Ammunition and a multiplication of soulja rage.

Now on the streets, everybody that see me

They really wanna be me, cause the degree

Of the set of ideals I accomplish

Are exotic treasures to relish.

A breath in the wind

Is the measure of the adversary’s wit.

I pull myself together, like a dose of forever

And straddle momentum like a speedometer.

My reality speaks like an oracle

Forcing eternity to pierce the temporal with its tentacle.

In a most profound way,

It inspires thoughts of better days.

I have compromised the vanity of people-hating

For the exquisite beauty of ingenuity;

I was born of desperate fury;

A seed of the poetic glory.

My triumph will invent a unique existence,

And tear up every wall of resistance.

In a nutshell,

The days of my life will amaze, will daze

Like a fairytale’s spell.

Akpan

Day 25: Signs of Majesty

Photo: eLKayPics via Flickr

I wait not for what man can give,

I never spared a care anyway.

Cause what a man can give,

A man can take away.

And I will not be relieved

Of the gift I received.

On my two firm feet

I will stand above the elements of defeat.

And conquer a cavalry of conceit.

But in the meanwhile, I will not be subjected by limits.

And until my glory is complete,

My valiant struggles will be replete,

And my prophecies ain’t gon’ deplete.

Thus, I thrive like a seed

Planted by the seven streams.

My tide will neither ebb nor recede.

Instead I will multiply like reed

Beside the Nile till all eyes crave to read

The memories of the myself of me,

And righteously covet my dream.

Cause I intend to exceed

Every single expectation, indefinitely reseed

And ravel out a mystery that’s been prevailing

Before the foundation of the world came to be.

Akpan

One Black Body

One black body.

As the teardrops spout thro’ the windows of my eyes

It’s hard to visualize paradise

Regained thro’ the tools of compromise.

But a foot-soulja like me

Knows the drill to never say die.

From below surface, like boosted rockets, I climb

Mortifying every challenge with retaliation.

A master of my own kismet, I execute my obligation

Operating on a higher level of courage

That would function nowhere else but center stage.

(If you must know anything man, know thyself!)

And commands awe like a clutter of spent shells.

Reigning in identity,

My affections sprung on the labors of integrity.

Souls of ancestors

Watching on, watching me, from the grandstand.

Applauding the triumphs of a survivor;

A true native son

In one black body.

There’s no one who can change my tomorrow today.

My course is charted

And the light of my life is waking

On the horizon. Cause my Red Sea’s parted.

Now I know why the caged bird sings.

I’m drunk on invention n’ ammunition,

Bracing the glare of the sun as it penetrates my rust.

Hate couldn’t displace my faith

Cause my rage and grace erased the bait of hate.

This is my pride of place:

The remolding of a pound of clay.

And my past shall not defect my future,

I adopted dyin’ to live as an item of ritual.

Prodding with ideas that’ll explode in the light,

My ideas wake me in the watches of the night.

I’ll take it and let it be

In one black body.

And in this body

Will arise the making of dynasties;

The unmaking of impossibilities;

The breaking of infinities,

Till kingdom come.

To testify how I walked thro’ walls

Before the keeper of all that is kept-

When I stand on that holy mountain-

Of a creature coming home with a 100 fold talent;

Of a worm’s strength when tests rose up like Cain.

Of new beginnings from a past of defeat;

About the determination of a Negro

Prompted by his enthusiasm and belief

In a simple childhood code.

Till I kick up a new facet of history

In one black body

I stand in awe of a past rooted in pain.

My soul bleeds at the mention of history’s shame.

Downtrodden but not downcast;

Blacklisted but going strong with a blast.

I leap on the back of the wind and cruise

World’s unknown my mind in tune with my muse.

And still not buying into a white-washed history.

Take one peek at mystery’s next-big-thing;

Drink your fill of a jewel of peculiar worth,

Shouldn’t come as a surprise I got balls n’ a song.

Situation steeped me in a turd of imperfection

Still the makings of me exhale God’s own split image.

Used to go around flashing a badge of shame

Only to get flung up by Redemption’s ditty.

This is where my forever story derives its beginning:

In one black body.

Akpan

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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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