Sentient Dreams

Courtesy: hdwallpapers3d.com

My whole life I’ve been haunted

By everything I’ve ever wanted.

I have walked in its shadow,

I have fed on its life force,

I’ve worn it like a cassock.

It’s my own omen of hope.

Here I stand one as many

Knowing my life is secure

By the standards I have set,

Still that doesn’t make it a ball.

I’ve learned the choices we make

Can hold us captive like slaves,

They can turn on us like beasts

And rip us to shreds like adversaries.

So I chase after these things,

Yet I am not yielded to them.

I’ve put a leash on the beast,

But it’s got me by the helm.

It dictates my attitude

I can’t not dance to its tune.

But I mustn’t let myself down.

I must stand out from the crowd.

So I hang on with one hand,

With the other I withstand.

I’m watching out for myself

Trying for not tripping on my leg.

I am into my dreams deep;

They chase me into my sleep,

I’m rooting for who I am,

Yet scared stiff of being the man.

My entire life I’ve wanted

By the very things I’ve always haunted.

Akpan

Dream On Wings

Courtesy: mermaidsrock.com

If I could steal wings for my dreams

I’d glide and survey the face of the deep,

I’d build a castle of stone in the skies

And strip every mountain of its lofty height.

If I could fling my dreams up to the stars

I’ll erase the sun and illuminate all with my spark,

I’ll rearrange the solar system place a hood on the moon

Then I’ll build a new world of virtue where it’s all good.

Akpan

Dead Dreams

Courtesy: Twitter

Staring down over a grave of dreams

I observe a billion good intentions go to rut

Solitary reapers on the verge of picking the gleanings

But falling just shy of their mature expectations.

Never made it but almost

Dreams coming thro but not quite fulfilled,

Lives well lived… almost.

Destinies moderately decoded.

I wonder how many millions have trucked this way;

What each heart would pour out and lay bare

If they were offered another shot to set things straight.

Would they make akin mistakes or throw in their best?

Because in the tomb where dreams are laid to rest

Only uncorrupted half-assed undertakings

Narrate tales of aborted victories,

And paint pictures of triumph’s grave defeats.

Akpan

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Day 11: Ghetto Chronicles

Photo: thwordinc.blogspot.com

I am a ghetto kid strung-out on a cache of shattering experiences. 

I spit details of my life on the breath of deathless utterances.

Sired into one of the basest classes in the gutter

It was extremely tough imagining life as a picnic.

I lived each day of my life in extremis to the letter

And believe me when I say I wasn’t your everyday skeptic.

It was the same old song

If you’ve been around these parts you know what I’m talking about.

Situation got me gone

And my business gave me a runaround.

Barely pulled through the different levels of school.

It felt like battling hell’s industrious crew.

The rut in the system sort of caught up

Now I’m kind o’ dreaming on testing the waters of illiteracy

Seems the ivory towers are all washed up.

What the hell so, I flipped it

And got my butt admitted into street college.

Look at the results and embrace novel proof of ingenuity.

Couldn’t exactly speak for my former colleagues.

But misery is a staple of everyday ghetto living

Keep taking blows, act tough but I can’t see myself leaving.

Not even when circumstance bears fangs like the African Boomslang.

I was brought forth in the ghetto,

Came of age in the ghetto,

Nurtured by the ghetto,

And now repping the ghetto.

Point is you can’t put the blame on me

I am what the ghetto made me;

A victor of circumstance,

My personal veritable comeuppance.

For I am not ashamed of the ghetto gospel

For it leads me on through this entire ghetto bustle.

I am the future and a youth

But the plans they got for me is the substance of a fluke.

They label me hoods.

Please, don’t be cruel.

I am what society made me too.

I have plodded through tough times.

And I have navigated the roughest miles.

Been an inch from mortalizing

But I kept right on laughing to keep from crying.

Cause I did come to recognize the purpose of life:

It’s not the days of our life but the life in those days

Which produce the bursting out of individuality revolutionized.

As I unbottle suppressed memories you’ll be amazed.

Easy to say, I guess

But reality abides in the mind’s meditation.

Tomorrow may not pass the test

As a figment of delusion.

I have borne such losses that could only be imagined.

And there’s the chronic pain that’s still hurting.

All for want of a silver spoon,

Tribulations of the experienced fool.

But through it all I sure did find

A worthy cause for which I’d put up a fight.

I know where my happiness is

I have received the revelation of my genesis.

You live in the ghetto,

You survive or die in the ghetto.

That’s the way it is

That’s the way it’s always gatto be.

Looks like I’m stuck in the game

And things will ever be the same.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothin’

Chronicles of a ghetto kid.

Akpan

Day 2: With This

Photo: tmerril.blogs.com

                                          Inspired by MLK

N’ with this faith,

Ama print my name

On the pages of history.

This faith calls me to take a stand.

N’ with this faith,

I arm myself with wit to withstand.

I shall not be victimized by circumstance.

I believe in the power of a dream

As this faith speaks peace.

N’ with this faith,

Humanity will remember my name

N’ declaim my fame in every age.

N’ with this faith,

I am a god in a shrine;

Ain’t nothing can stub my shine.

N’ with this faith,

I maintain my space;

Those who desire to reach and keep their place

On the mountaintop must take the hard way.

With this faith,

I am walking through the fire

And I’m coming out hard-boiled;

With this faith,

I strike water in the Sahara

N’ if I consume poison, I shall be reborn.

With this faith,

I exalt the treasures of blackness,

A geyser of enthusiasm, I reach for greatness.

N’ with this faith,

I will achieve the impossible,

Prove myself formidable

‘Cause I am untouchable.

With this faith,

I shall stymie the inevitable,

As I perform the incredible.

With this faith,

These eyes shall anticipate the invisible.

With this faith,

I walk into tomorrow

Wielding the nerve of a hero.

N’ with this faith,

I topple titans

With a sling and a stone.

N’ with this lil’ ebony light of mine

I’m a set the world on fire

As I let it shine.

N’ with this faith,

This also shall come to pass,

For this faith within is an organic compass.

N’ with this faith,

I clean the clock of unnumbered foes.

With this faith,

Tomorrow is this close;

With this faith,

I hold destiny in the palm of my hand;

I am the perfection of God’s master-plan.

N’ with this faith,

I intend to put the world on ice;

With this faith,

Still I rise.

I am the future,

I am a masterpiece of Mother Nature.

N’ with this faith,

I print my name on the walls of this terrestrial globe,

Somebody get me my robe

‘Cause with this faith,

I rule the world.

N’ with this faith…

Akpan

Painted

I am not afraid to die.

I’m just taking precautions so it don’t trigger the dynamite

And explode before my years on earth are full and ripe.

Why, ‘it’s only the eyes of a child

That fears a painted devil,’ right?

I was born with dynamic potentials

I made up my mind to ignore the inconsequential.

But ya’ll played me like I was a fool,

Disrespected my uniqueness without a clue

And unanimously labeled me, born to lose.

There’s a profound and startling mystery in the fall of a sparrow.

I see no obstacles though; just a bunch of scarecrows-

Cause it’s a fine line between seeing it and taking it.

You may shove that jive dude, it ain’t what I need.

This genius flies without jets

I’m so fired up I can single-handedly eat up the moment.

I’ll take the fragments of a dream and build with it.

But always, ya’ll played me like I was the fool,

Disrespected my ingenuity without a clue,

And gave the unanimous vote that I was born to lose.

Now, I think I know a little bit about why folks say

Life is based on the choices we make.

Cause in the time hate rounded me up like a lake?

If I chose not to believe in the stuff I’m made of

And face the challenges, call your bluff?

My story would be way beyond told and into the land of history.

That I multiplied kills you, isn’t that about the size of it?

All that time playing me like I was the fool,

Your comeuppance crept on you without a clue,

You and ya’ll unanimous votes. But hey! Jokes on you.

Akpan

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