Only the Rugged Survive

This poem marks my 700th post in 7 years (2009-2016)

Afraid to wake up,

Scared witless of sleep,

Why ya’ll gatto fake up,

When the truths within sleep.

The beginning deepens

The spiteful frustration in the end.

Purposelessness weakens

Hardline juvenile diligence.

In this broad daylight nightmare

I’ve come to recognize as mine,

Life is handout welfare.

Only the rugged survive.

Akpan

Down to Struggle

In the belly of the beast,

The streets consume me like a feast.

Along comes betrayal, hate is yeast

But in no way the least.

To survive with my fist

Is not my wish

So I’m down to struggle hard before I accomplish.

Heat is rain on this rubble,

Food tastes like gravel,

Ghetto healthcare will make you marvel.

I’m a grown man

With great dreams and plans

But I’m yet to understand

Whether my future falls or stands.

Akpan

Bargain Price

Young dreams die for a bargain price,

Out of a job for years in my prime,

Victimized by high-class hard stares,

Underrated by peers.

Born before my time.

Hardly recognized,

Fragments of peace achieved by a fight.

My thoughts are a conflict.

My imaginations are about war.

My very feelings afflict me.

The stress I see

Is greater than men could perceive,

It’s the promise of a seed

That increases the loss I grieve.

Akpan

Phases of Unrest

Visions thro a glass darkly

Explain the repercussion of expecting too much briefly.

The valleys I’ve come thro

Produce irrepressible proof of more to tunnel thro.

Building hopes and dreams

On desolations that overflow the brim

I’m hearing my soul scream

The situation creating insanity,

Throwing my mind on the theory of impossibility.

It’s a world of unfeeling

And my courage is careening

Out of control the only way to address

The last phase of unrest,

Is to stage a protest.

Akpan

Blame it On Blaine

A poem inspired by the hell train in Stephen King's

Dark Tower IV; Blaine the Mono.

A ride on a hell train

Can’t convey such strain.

The aim’s to best Blaine;

But my brain’s so lame,

Faking snakes on a plane,

Headaches turn migraine.

This Blaine train’s a pain,

Riddle me this riddle me straight,

I can’t beat this it aint in my trait.

I’m stuck in a rage of a race.

I’m on center stage of a craze.

The street’s a blur it’s insane,

If I quit the riddles I get slain,

I hear Blain snivel maybe it’s the rain.

Akpan

Where Sunshine Darkens

Courtesy: Somewhere on Blogger

You can’t tell me

The various shades of misery

I’ve seen enough for myself

So you can’t show me

The way around its gardens

I trod those forbidden paths myself

I’ve experienced the land where sunshine darkens

I’ve wiped sweats of death off my brow

My spot in this existence is a shroud

An untapped resource of sorrow

With no promise of tomorrow.

I have walked the streets of the ghetto,

Traveled the well-beaten paths of unhope,

And I got no respect for intellectual duplicity;

Education is expensive.

Akpan