Empathy Mode

Courtesy: UNHCR

Don't breathe a word

Just cuddle me to your heart.

I long for silent comfort

Till shredding fear becomes art. 

Let our heartbeats

Sound a blended discord

While one runs the scales

Let the other hammer the chords. 

Let our breathing raise a chorus

As we inhale the pause,

Let our exhales be the crescendo

And our chestheaves even out the tempo. 

Sing me like a song

Stroke me like ebony and ivory

On your digital keyboard

Wrap up my broken tones in harmony. 

If only you'd cuddle me to your heart.

It's all I ask

And more than I could ever ask. 

Akpan

Where You Go To Know You're Alive

Click the image to get there. 
Courtesy: UNHCR

Love is a place in your heart

Where you go to know you're alive.

All you do is press start

And soon you're eating up the miles.

Love can be anything

Can't nothin'  be love but love;

It's the smile you give a kid,

In the whisper of 'Refugees Welcome.'

In that space,

Friendship has a face,

Sharing holds the ace,

And compassion wins the race.

There are no walls

To block feelings between us.

If we can be there

For each other, show we care,

We'll get there. 

Akpan

If MLK Was Here Today

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If MLK was here today

They'd start a cult in his name

And make his creed drip hate.

They'd mutilate his 'dream'

Behind the walls of a smokescreen

If MLK was here today,

The world'd be a better place

Cause his words will be a mace

For all who believe,

Who would find a reason

To knock down this treason.

If MLK was here today,

We'd plow this field of gray

And make compost

Of yesterday's ghosts. 

In which we'd plant homegrown dreams

And grace would flow like a never-ending stream. 

But we seeds of MLK

For we are all God's children

If we use his words to make a change

And build back better brethren. 

If MLK was here today,

It ain't mean zilch if we have not love.

Gotta write the vision and make it plain

Then we may run with it and transform

This one world cause it's all we got. 

Akpan

Keep It Together

It’s so much better

When we’re holding hands

Our smiles are wider

Our hearts on exotic lands

Two hearts entwined

In sync like multi-rhymed

Verse can multiply

Into revelations of another life

You give me fever

Deep down inside

Make me a believer

When you walk beside

Me fingers locked

Palms rubbing it off

Personalities are suspended

Compromise is conceded

Nobody gives a flying cake

Worries are light years away

It’s so much better

When we keep it together

Akpan

Love Like A Mic

Love, all alike

hugs me like a mic

Love, oh love

Love like Dews of Hermon

Love has attacked me

Love has conquered me

Love has sprung me up

On wings through an aperture

into a realm of glory

Love composed my story

Love, all alike

Love like a mic.

Akpan

Need to Bleed

I feel the need to bleed
I kinda miss the thrill
Cause feeling has become luxury.
My heart timed out n' imploded,
The sketch is duly noted.
Hearts of stone have been molded
By license to kill freely given
To men with guns whose heart's frozen
Conscience was an open wound
Before it got tanned for leather.
Our beached love vessel is marooned
And man trusts not his own brother.
Our custom hearts beat a custom tom;
We sold compassion for a song.
I feel I'd feel if I bleed
Right now my spot is a weed.

Akpan

One is a Crowd

It's kinda crowded in here
But hey! You've been here before,
I remember your face, clear.
You used to fill me in on stuff
And we'd laugh when's nothing's funny.
Suddenly, this enmity
And we grope for this time love.
Someone cinched the 3-fold cord
A little too  tight for  comfort
And it snapped for want of fresh air
Does anyone even give a care?
We broke up like atoms and gone
Our separate routes of destruction,
Three is companion
Two is communion
And love is bound
For hate is crowned,
One is a crowd.

Akpan

7.9 TLC

In life, there’s bound to be some pain;

At some point, you're bound to get some measure of hate.

Nature will seldom holla, “I’m turning up the heat in this place,”

Wake up, time's too short to spend mopping around in a daze.

Sprinkle a dash of sunshine on this rubble.

Spit a message of prophecy and refrain from your grumble.

Make the connect; from Africa to the uttermost of Australasia;

Let America arise and do all it can.

Feel the need for change bulldoze the way out for Nepal.

Reach out and unpaint this ghastly picture if you dare;

Let's rock their world with a 7.9 magnitude tender lovin’ care.

Depose doubt and despair with desperate deeds of kindness,

Fight nature's fury with fiery faith flattering furious and fearless.

Bind passion to compassion position stormclouds of hope on this wilderness.

Cause it's impossible to share with an open heart and come up less.

Sprinkle a dash of sunshine on this rubble.

Spit a message of prophecy and refrain from your grumble.

Make the connect; from Africa to the uttermost of Australasia;

Let America arise and do all it can.

Feel the need for change bulldoze the way out for Nepal.

Reach out and unpaint this ghastly picture if you dare;

Let's rock their world with a 7.9 magnitude tender lovin’ care.

Akpan