Day 20: One Shine

Photo Courtesy: somewhere on cyberspace

I’ll dip the skies in orange glow,

Speak forth the articles of dawn;

I’ll wake the morning with my flow,

Roll back the dark side of the horizon.

I’ll pierce the clouds with fingers of light

Shot from my corner of the earth.

I’ll rip apart the shroud of night;

Break the day like palm kernel shell.

I can see things clearly now.

My joy flows totally out of bounds.

My hands have worked my waking

Into the new day I’m breaking,

I’m turning the rain to the drain.

Kneading pregnant clouds to change,

But I brought the sun into my night;

Traded several dusks for one shine.

Akpan

Switched

For all those years I thought the Boko Haram insurgency was
an extended spell of the infamous Northern Nigeria riots

Incomplete, that’s the definition of me without a you

It’s taken me a while but the blinders are down it’s true.

I’ve seen my wrong I know I’ve been such a fool not to.

Unfeeling had me like and I said, ‘It’ll pass.’ That’s cruel.

Why do I visualize paradise but get paralyzed

By the sight of you otherwise immortalized?

I’ll rime till it’s sunrise n’ your night turns brite,

Time I switched sides, be a bona fide paradigm.

‘A few more days,’ I said, ‘and it’ll be gone with the wind.’

While you died in plain sight I let fear lax my heartstrings,

But time taught me not to wait for what tomorrow brings;

I am what brings tomorrow so I rise on a dayspring scream.

Why do I visualize paradise but get paralyzed

By the sight of you otherwise immortalized?

I’ll rime till it’s sunrise n’ your night turns brite,

Time I switched sides, be a bona fide paradigm.

Akpan

The N. Word

Happy birthday, Nigeria!

Here have a green rose.

The only way to close a book might be to turn the page

And an offering of peace in a time may trigger rage

The land of my affection blazes at its coming of age

I shudder in the wake

Of intense hate as my strength fails

I anticipate things disintegrate into rut and decay

I cringe at the sight and before the waters break

I feel the flux of faith flush my follicles feeding in grace

And the feeling comes home

It’s who I am it’s why I am

An indivisible individual

It’s all part of a bigger game plan

I am N I am the oasis of the Sahara

I am I I eclipse the sky I’m still standing vertical

I’m a G still on the real and definitely perceptual

I am E my game is lyric like a Negro Spiritual

I am R roaring like the black Simba it’s natural

I’m the I in the sky so fly so intellectual

I’m the Ace riding the hate winning’s ritual

Did you know patience is easy if it is all you have

That the way home might lead through a graveyard

That tho Rome wasn’t built in a day the builders were Roman

You don’t know the half

My play’s first act starts as all falls apart

This too will pass my story will surpass this lame impasse

Ain’t living in denial I witnessed the bloodbaths

I saw the bodies turned to ash the aftermath of the blasts

Yet the feeling comes home

It’s who I am it’s why I am

An indivisible individual

It’s all part of a bigger game plan

I am N I am the oasis of the Sahara

I am I I eclipse the sky I’m still standing vertical

I’m a G still on the real and definitely perceptual

I am E my game is lyric like a Negro Spiritual

I am R roaring like the black Simba it’s natural

I’m the I in the sky so fly so intellectual

I’m the Ace riding the hate and winning’s ritual

Akpan

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