Day 3: Desire

Write me down

Like an ethereal sound

Strike the chords of my affection

With the delicateness in a grandmaster’s thumb.

Cause I will yet be music

To 10,000 ears

The sound of my voice poetry

That will usher up a pool of tears

In the eyes of all who absorb it.

An item of rejoicing to them that will receive.

And this rhythm will never change

But it will spark a flame

That, in its turn, will ignite a revolution.

Pick me up

Like a soulful song

Hum my exhales like a melody

Cause, you see, this life will be the earth’s harmony.

Inhale me then

Like your soul-force oxygen

Covet me like redemption’s own pathogen

Come, blow the horns of peace

Chant the symphony of bliss

And come traverse the realm of poetics

With I, your sweet release.

Akpan

Lifestyle (II)

How dare you question how I live,

When your assistance was invented to deceive?

You feed your greed

By the breakthroughs I achieve.

I let pain explain

The degree of hate I experienced on this tragic plane,

Cause the dogs are not to blame

For the name of the game.

Yet, the thugs must be crazy.

They call us lazy

Cause we provoke their hypocrisies

And expose them shady.

I do what I gatto do-

What needs to be done to get thro.

There’s hell to pay if I wait on you.

And hell’s really child’s play

When you analyze this tragedy I face.

It’s hand to mouth

And it’s world war IV to zip your snout

While starvation stabs at my throat.

It’s either hustle or I turn ghost.

In this life, you never get what you truly deserve

So I endure a fragile reserve-

A youth with one purpose for a future:

To outlive the laws of nature.

Indeed, you call me criminal

Cause I chose to be a unique individual.

You made a ritual

Of hunting me down

And succeeded in making a little fortune out

Of it while you raped my town

Naked. Truth’s abbreviated

For the prosperity of the party’s hidden manifestos,

All these god wannabe psychos

Refraining pathetic allegrettos.

We are champions of the struggle,

We were here before you,

And after your game fizzles like dew,

We’ll still be here as blinding proof . . .

Marked for death,

It’s very hard not to be afraid.         

You can’t predict what’s next

Damn, all your wit’s engaged.

I’m enslaved

By your freedom

Cause your variety of emancipation

Was designed to incarcerate us.

I invented a personal opus

Within: I’ll bear my cross.

If ever my path hits a deadlock . . .

I’ll brush it off and I’ll walk on.

So don’t question me

If you won’t place your faith in me.

I perceive it’s my destiny

To fashion a lifestyle out of my misery.

You can’t alter my prophecy!

Akpan

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• Insert title here

Glass Ceiling

I count the varied blessings

Dealt out through the lessons,

I subtract the pain

To perceive the drama lessens.

The gutter runs riot of rustics

And phonies spread us dry like raisins.

They claim we transgressing

But the tragedy’s there ain’t no one addressing

The hell we all living

Through. We thriving and we weeded

Time to heal and we all illin’

Time to eat and no one’s feeding.

Young ones are screaming

And nobody’s heeding.

They’re hurt and they’re bleeding,

Open sores and injuries

All over their bodies.

On bended knees, we’re praying

But our situation’s dramatic irony.

Our rejoicing is elegy

Picture us in the ministry of poverty.

But sincerely,

None of us is tripping.

My courage will build up my entity,

Create a paradise in this Hades’ territory.

Like an inner mystery

Evolving independently

To breathe a new reality

Into a personal niche.

I’ll find ways to put my talent to use eternally.

I’m doing it mentally,

If you can’t picture me, physically.

Until I bring change to the community,

Paste eternity up in the range of society.

As an agent of ingenuity,

Preacher of individuality,

Victim of animosity,

Subject of controversy,

And a staunch disciple of originality.

Always sought an opportunity to be me

Now that I have the prerogative,

I’m through procrastinating,

I’m done with all this hating,

I’m busting through the glass ceiling.

Akpan

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Live A Lie (II)

Prosperity is misery;

Poverty is mystery.

Into one of these each of us is called to ministry.

In the belly of the beast,

Cuffed on the wrist, preyed on like a feast,

Concealing a fragile will, too weak to resist.

So many youths, so out of use,

Very easily seduced, trading places with tragic fools.

Truth sneaked out the window

And now lies shattered like a widow.

The path of the youth is death row

But we gatto breathe though emotion’s shallow.

No one gives a pin none would oblige.

You’re excess, if you’re alive, like weeds thrive.

Existence is like rocking a beehive.

To become what we’re not-

A nightmare’s stuff-

The only chance at mobility we got.

Hypocritical situations present themselves,

Falling at my feet, promising life on the shelf.

But ain’t nobody hint on my personal dreams.

I’m just another dot in the sky of the majority,

A drop in the flow of the human sea.

A disarmed foot soulja in the fight for destiny.

Nobody knows me,

I’m just a needle in a haystack,

A blob on a page of a lost book of poetry.

A mail with no feedback.

They offered me a choice,

Rid of the convenience of a voice,

To join the line of the political toys.

A mere toy not worthy of the toil.

It’s herd instinct

In the house and on the streets,

Compassion is strict

People is scared to death of revolution.

No motivation,

We pursue illusions and seldom remember our vision.

Rut exists in ingenuity and realistically,

No individual misses sleep over the addictive insanity.

Anybody, everybody, nobody

Always someplace being somebody they ain’t

And not just cause they can’t

As much as they won’t.

It’s the goddam rule

That runs a world of potentials to doom.

The weapons we fashion against our chances prosper

Cause we suicide wield ‘em together.

And if we meet Forever

It’d be a long shot cause by then the game’d be over.

Time after time

It’s lie or die

So they ya’ll chose to live a lie.

Akpan

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Ain't Dead Yet

I ain’t finished with me, yet.

I ain’t a loser yet,

I ain’t giving up yet,

I would be back yet,

And I ain’t dead yet.

I ain’t a conqueror yet,

I ain’t a master yet,

I ain’t there yet,

I ain’t that dynamite yet,

Ain’t the prototype success story yet,

I ain’t a unique specimen, yet;

I ain’t fulfilled a destiny, yet.

But I will.

Just watch me

Cause, I ain’t dead, yet.

I ain’t that star piercing the dark clouds, yet,

I ain’t achieved 300 inventions with a

Handful of peanuts, yet.

I ain’t hitting newspaper headlines, yet;

I ain’t trending on twitter, yet.

I ain’t on the dream team, yet.

I ain’t wrestled a black nation from inequality, yet.

I ain’t scored my first World Cup goal, yet.

I ain't made it to the mountaintop, yet;

I ain’t slain my Goliaths yet;

I’m even short on rocks for my sling.

I ain’t on a world class record crew, yet;

I ain’t been to the ends of the world, yet;

I ain’t seen the rainbow’s end, yet,

Sheez, I ain’t got a dime to begin with.

I ain’t six feet under just yet;

I ain’t dead, yet.

I ain’t the man in the mirror, yet,

I ain’t the strength of a worm, yet;

I ain’t a prisoner-turned-prime minister yet.

I ain’t a Zwelinzima, yet;

I ain’t who I seek to be, yet,

But I ain’t tripping, you bet

I ain’t dead, yet.

I ain’t taught a soul to fly, yet;

I ain’t on top of the world, yet;

I ain’t broken a record, yet;

I ain’t slain my Egyptian, yet;

The cloud’s moving but my stuff ain’t packed, yet.

I ain’t the beauty of the earth, yet,

I ain’t the black pimpernel, yet.

I ain’t a celebrity, yet;

I ain’t the shining coal, yet;

I ain’t a Nobel laureate, yet.

I ain’t on the winning side, yet.

I ain’t the African dream, yet;

I ain’t the future of the world, yet.

I ain’t counting blessings, yet.

Guess, I haven’t written my Same Song

Recital, I gatto floss against all odds

Or I just ain’t dying on me, yet.

I ain’t that superstar, yet;

I ain’t the greatest, yet;

I ain’t written my Godfather, yet.

I ain’t History, yet,

I ain’t the voice of a dying nation, yet;

I ain’t survived a civil war to invent

The fastest calculating machine, yet;

You can bet your life on it, I ain’t done yet.

I ain’t getting me limited by popular opinion, yet;

I ain’t crippled by status quo, yet.

Even World War 3 ain’t a threat.

If before I achieve, my body hits the cemetery,

Don’t turn the page and close the book, yet;

I’m coming back after they bury me;

I ain’t dead, yet.

Akpan

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