Mo' Than You'll Ever Know

For Refugee Olympic Team participating at
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic games.
Photo Courtesy: UNHCR

Mo' than you'll ever know

I'm rooting for you

Bring back the gold

And paint the skies blue

I hope your dreams come true

You deserve that gold

More than Simone Biles

Twisting her neck-wringing style

So I'm rooting for you

Cause refugees can too

Shout out to Mosamah cycling

Her way all thru to the olympics

I'm cheering for amazing athletes

Like Kimia, Dina and Abdullah

Mo' than Sha' Carri Richardson

When she pumping like a train coming

Down the track

I'm rooting for Anas Al Khalifa

For Cyrille, the weightlifter.

That's why I'm making it plain

Like a shot of pain

To the back of the brain

Rain down on Tokyo

Like Nyiragongo Volcano.

I'm rooting for you

Mo' than you'll ever know

I'm sold out to you

And that's all you need to know.

Akpan

Humanitarian

“Today we pause to remember all those UNHCR colleagues and aid
 workers whose lives were taken from them in the
course of their humanitarian work. ”
— Fillipo Grandhi, UN High Commissioner For Refugees.
13 UNHCR staff members lost their lives to Covid-19,
 this poem is tribute to their lives of selfless service to humanity.

There was so much hope,

Many found strength to cope,

Cause they lent a hand to hold

When war shoved folks in the cold,

And situation turned cutthroat

When Covid rocked the boat.

They had hearts of gold

And a handful of bold

And now that their tale's told,

Their legend will never grow old.

There are acts so dope

They stretch thru time

Like a subcutaneous rope

And men of all ages are inclined

To let the story unwind

If only once in their lifetime,

Of the one and three

Who gave it all up for refugees.

The heart never forgets to remember

It will rekindle the ember

Of memory in the cold of December.

Here's to the selfless thirteen

UNHCR aid workers lost to Covid-19.

Akpan

Refugees Are People

The official 29 members of
The IOC Refugee Olympic Team
participating in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics
Courtesy: The UNHCR YouTube channel

Refugees are people.

Feed that to your mental input device,

Refugees are people,

Not some three blind mice

Kids poke to see how they run,

Real people scorched by fires of war

Whose hearts assumed a charred tone.

Just so you know,

Refugees are no invertebrate-

Queered mammals with no backbones,

Let that thought percolate

And there'll be no bones

About acknowledging a humanity

Beamed by a deep and inventive personality,

Although, we're called 'refugees,'

We're a people pumping redemptive energies

We strive to extort our past

By making sacrifices that last.

We're going the whole nine yards

And this ain't no thin gruel,

We're pleased to present a world class

World record breaking crew,

Drumrolls please...

The IOC Refugee Olympic Team.

That's proof there's more to “Refugee"

Than the downtalk that meets your ear,

“This is going down in history,

And our names will be there.”

Akpan

You Count

Happy Birthday to the world's greatest
refugee organisation. 
UNHCR70

Three score years straddling a decade

You've been in the business of making lemonade

From streams of tears of people on the downgrade;

Scathed twigs snatched from fires of war,

Minors plucked from the cliff of a crisis,

Outcasts fleeing the bias of discrimination.

For those holed up in waste lands, you build an oasis

And thrust into their hearts the gift of hope.

You've given countless beasts of no nation

An abiding identity and a home.

And several persons with no birth records

Are no longer mere faces in the crowd

Cause you make certain every strike counts.

The world's witnessing rising hostilities,

Over 80 million refugees and counting...

Yet you've stayed an anchor in troubled seas

A sturdy branch reaching out to a drowning man.

Wherever darkness covers the land,

You have held out a ray.

You've often believed, ” Everybody Counts.”

Now on your very own special day

Everybody declares, above all, that” You Count.”

Akpan