Day 4: Shero

For Maya Angelou

Your girlish smile
Is hands off suicide.
In your quest to rise
You blurred the lines,
Blending the elements of black and white.
It's cold news that stays hot;
We live the dream and the hope
You stuck out your neck for.
Bringing in the sheaves on slave boats.
We believed what we was told.
Until you gave voice to stories of old.
Can't talk legacy,
Or browse the anals of chemistry.
One name dims the words on the pages.
Like a silhouette printed on rims of mystery.
The one woman haters couldn't decode.
The undisputed, veritable shero.

Akpan

Day 4: Good On You

Photo Courtesy: mashable.com

You wear your dazzling smile,

And take that stride a mile;

You walk up to trouble,

And that bitch just crumble.

You got tools to stomp fools…

Black looks good on you.

You wear faith like a charm,

You wield magic in your palm,

You tackle each new day,

With your own unique grace;

You’re programmed like a groove…

Black looks good on you.

You negotiate the storm in style

Like you was born to ride.

If you want something you

Take it and damn the rules.

I cherish you for being you…

Black looks good on you.

Akpan

Day 4: Maya

And still you rise

Phenomenally

Beyond the bars of compromise,

Perfecting womanhood in one black body.

Trailing the flames of withering injustice

You have arrived on a verse of one million realities.

Like the verdict to a racist world,

Thru the voice of the printed word.

You have initiated a poetic odyssey;

Planted a seed in the soil of a young mind.

You are the raceless nation's oracle of prophecy

I hope to meet in that big ghetto in the sky.

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2014: Day 4

Day 4: Box Fever

Today’s Prompt: The department store elevator shuts down on the way to the fourth floor, with you and ten other people in it. You remain calm but other people begin to panic. Write this scene and the dialogue between characters.

— Courtesy: WritersDigest.Com

Word Count: 1,312

            “Last time I was in an elevator and this kind of shit happened things took a bad turn and one of the guys croaked,” A woman standing close to the doors said.

            “And when precisely was that, madam?” A man gone in years said.

            “Two, three, four, five years ago,” Said the lady.

            “On what floor was the elevator when it got stuck?”

And the answer came flying right back. “About the third or fourth floor.”

All eyes in the elevator shot up to the display panel. The electric potential in the atmosphere went up a few notches.

            “Ya gotta be kidding me. I don’t believe that hype you cooked up. A ball of crap and old women’s fables, is what it is.” The old man eyed the lady. Well, I can’t say he stared hard or was only looking in her direction cause the place we were in was dark with the lights out.

            “I swear on my mama’s grave.” The lady’s voice had increased in pitch. “Why would I lie when I’m also stuck in this circuit just like everybody else?”

            “Because some people major in giving other people a heart attack,” The old guy said. “Besides being under a lot of stress can lead to running off at the mouth.”

            “I am not under stress, sir.”

            “You’re stuck in this mess with us, lady. Ain’t you?”

“Excuse me,” a masculine executive voice said. Probably, the guy I’d spotted donning a three piece suit earlier when all the lights were on. “Shouldn’t we concentrate our energies on finding a way out of this jam?”

An alarm went off someplace overhead.

            “What on God’s earth is that?” Some guy topping a face cap said. That moment of urgency made his voice come out in a squeal.

            “People, if there ever was a way out of this situation, it is not racketing and panic,” Some dude, standing in the center of the elevator, said. “Let’s get ourselves to…” Read more here IntShoWriMo 2014

Eneh Akpan

June 4th, 2014

Day 4: M

Happy Birthday, Dr. Maya Angelou!

To hold destiny in the palm of my hands

To peep thru Divinity's eyes and see tomorrow

As the curtain unfolds to reveal the Promised Land.

To perch on the edge of sorrow

To look up and smile with the balls of a hero

To win the battle before a slug is shot

To seize the spoils of war

Without drawing a single weapon

Because I am the possible;

I am the miraculous.

To stare calamity in the face and have no fear

To approach perplexity like I don't give a care

To look pain in the eyeballs like you have no idea

To override fate

To stonewall the inevitable

And right here in this place

To beam my bat signal and bring the sun rays

To dispel repression and give gusto to the rubble.

Because I am the possible;

I am the miraculous.

To erect from shifting sand eternal palaces

To shoot like a comet and witness the rebirth of galaxies

To prosper in the pits of destruction

To indulge all misery as life's instruction

To deduct the lessons in a fool's paradise.

To triumph despite the majority's cowardice.

To bow down to no man's opinion

To rise still as the champ of a million

Because I am the possible;

I am the miraculous.

Akpan

Related articles

• What Maya Angelou Can Teach The Music Industry
• This Brown Queen | Maya Angelou
• "We can be. Be and be better. For they existed." Maya Angelou
• Maya Angelou - Still I Rise
• "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." ~ Maya Angelou
• Dressing Up Maya Angelou

IntShoWriMo 2013: DAY 4

Courtesy: guardian.co.tt

Today’s Prompt:

A drunk man sits next to you in a bar, thinks you’re his buddy and starts confessing “the truth.” Write about what the truth is.

Courtesy: CreativeWritingPrompts.Com

Link for Day 4: DAY 4: Duncan’s Story Word Count: 2,085

A lawyer is on his way home after visiting with a client whose engaged in a dispute with local authorities in regards to his property. He spots a bar at the intersection and decides to cool off some of the day’s heat.

He’s not in there fifteen minutes and this drunk called Duncan tramps in and makes his acquaintance confusing him for his friend Dick. (Later, on his way out, the lawyer discovers he bears some semblance to Dick.)

Duncan’s been up to no good and reveals this to the lawyer who he believes is his friend Dick. He peed on a vehicle parked at the extreme right of the joint’s parking lot. The vehicle in question happens to be the lawyer’s whose real name is Sam.

But wait, the story is far from over.

Sam plays along pretending he’s indeed Dick and all the while hoping the drunk called Duncan would confess to a crime that attracts tougher penalty than peeing on a private vehicle would.

No truth serum beats alcohol. Ask at your local joint.

And Duncan tells Sam… ah… read the damn story for yourself.

Read the full story here, DAY 4: Duncan’s Story

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan