Day 5: Tenacity of Hope

Hope that does not lie,

And cannot die

Sings with a shrill within its cage,

And defies the bars of rage.

Hope that can’t be caged down,

Longs for its turn around.

It hops a dance and lifts a tune

And snatches a chance within its gloom.

Hope that aint a lie,

Tramples compromise,

Raises a standard against fear.

It got heart that screams I’ll get there!

Hope that survives the loss;

Hope that thrives against all odds

Has broken the chains of bondage

And made the captive unafraid.

Akpan

Day 5: Myself of Me

Aint nobody else in this whole world I’d rather be.

Somebody who’s always evolving but stays the same;

Who keeps it locked because he’s constantly growing.

He lives within but he lives it loud so his life breaks

Out on all creation like the dawn of a brand new day.

Aint nobody else steadily sticks closer than the skin,

Flesh of my flesh got ties thicker than high-tension wire.

He bows and dips in the stream of my inner mystery

Because he is and can ever only be the fish in my blue sea;

He is the captain of my team and the crew of my ship.

Aint nobody else worth shooting for none comes close.

He is the I in the myself of me he’s my positive overdose,

Fate set us a date and time equipped us with the attitude,

Together we got skills, divided we just a bunch of fools.

It’s obvious cause I am what I am and cannot be reduced.

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2014: Day 5

Day 5: The Enterprise

Today’s Prompt: “My business is to create,” wrote William Blake. This week, write a story whose protagonist is also in a creative enterprise. Your character can be an artist, or he or she can be involved in a field your typical reader may not initially think of as creative. Try to find and describe this creative impulse.

— Courtesy: PW.Org

Word Count: 1,544

It was five in the evening and the feasting was done. Me and Reuben had grabbed a rattan chair each and walked off to the bank of the river a few meters behind his house. We took glass cups, a bottle filled with water and a little table for entertainment. The evening air was fresh and cool; a perfect culture for a serious conversation.

            “What do you guys do down where you said you worked?”

 I took a deep breath and said, “The Enterprise?”

            “Yeah, that. What are you up to?”

I cleared my throat. “I am the Creative Director.”

            “Break that down into chunks I can gobble in one swallow.”

            “I create stuff and I have all authority in decision making.”

            “You’ve lost me for the second or third time in as many minutes.”

I looked at him and spoke one word I knew he’d understand. “Art.”

            “I’d have come to ruin towing that line,” he said. “I tried it often even with you standing close by doing your own thing. Remember the times we came by these same waters as kids to paint the scenery?”

I nodded.

            “You, you were always the gifted hands in the family. Always.” His face congealed in a scowl. “How did you drift so far apart from the promising kid we all believed in, Markus?”

I swallowed and even though my mouth was empty, a lump slid down my throat like XL bitter-leaf-flavored pills.

            “Called and said you got a fine job and we was happy for you. Said you ‘created’ stuff and we believed you were a genius of some sort and beamed with pride everywhere we went…”

Reuben sniffed on his inhaler. He always had one on him whether he caught a cold or not. God knows why.

            “’Kay, I give up. I can’t narrate your own story to you it’s like preaching to the darn choir. So help me out. I want to know what you did. Don’t spit it like some god darn official report. Spin the yarn as simple as simple does without making it sound like a ball of confusion.” He sniffed some more on his inhaler. He sank in his rattan chair. ‘Your turn’ that gesture seemed to say. Read more here: IntShoWriMo 2014

Eneh Akpan

June 5th, 2014

Day 5: Abandon

Don’t tend the shadow within

Giving it fodder to thrive on.

Making its No. 1 priority the annihilation

Of the very thing you love.

You can make the best use of this moment

And overturn the downward spiral of your sentiment.

Nobody else qualifies to love you like you.

So love yourself till that light comes thru.

What are you searching for in the past?

When tomorrow with outstretched arms,

Holds out every good promise from a portal.

Would you trade the extraordinary

For flimsy stuff that ain’t going to last.

Give life the right to run its course

But you don’t have to wade thru in a sob.

Strength gained through the pain

Is ammunition to maintain in the game.

So don’t make circumstances your burden.

Step out from behind your prison,

Emerge out of the fog that corrupts your essence

And relish with a fierce jealousy,

The precious present.

Akpan

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IntShoWriMo 2013: DAY 5

Courtesy: visualfunhouse.com

Today’s Prompt:

You get to your studio to develop pictures from the hour you spent in the park. All of the pictures turn out well, except for a select few. In six photographs, there is a man in the frame. Something seems slightly off, and rather strange about each picture. Who is he and what is weird about the photographs?

Courtesy: writersdigest.com

Link for Day 5: DAY 5: The Picture Inside the Picture Word Count: 2,102

I tried to write the man in the picture off as an assassin who, while stalking some rich dude’s family out on a picnic, is accidentally captured by a freelance photographer at dubious angles. But I thought hell, I don’t have the time to draw up a gun fight, not today, phew, into the wastebasket.

Option two, I thought, what if the man’s alien? There’s a part in my story where two freelance photographers go for a walk at the beach and end up snapping photos. The idea was to replace the man with a woman on the beach and make it appear like there’s more than one of his kind on earth and somehow, these guy’s tools are the only thing that can see them. Then I thought, That’s way too much energy. Just stick to the prompt, will ya? Phew, into the wastebasket.

Now, here’s something I actually did do for a change.

I used the story to explain the human condition. Sometimes, we encounter circumstances we can only come to grasps with by admitting our inadequacies as humans. A lot of stuff happens around us that are beyond our abilities to control or comprehend and the only way to prevail is by learning to thrive regardless of it.

The characters in this story never ID’d the man in the picture. But they carried on with their lives and lived like they gotta live.

Read the full story here, DAY 5: The Picture Inside the Picture

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan