No Words

Three Doctors Without Borders medical charity
employees were found killed in a brutal act of murder.
This is for aid workers, Maria Yohaness and Tedros.
Photo Courtesy: msf.org

No words

Can convey our shock

No words

Can soothe the loss

And suffering of the loved ones

Of aid workers, Maria, Yohaness

And Tedros,

To whom we relay our condolences.

Cut down in Ethiopia's Tigray region

In a brutal act of murder,

No words

Can portray this cruel slaughter.

The three aid workers who died

Were in Tigray saving lives,

And they paid for their work

With an heroic sacrifice.

No words

Can paint the gruesome attack

On the spanish, Maria

And the two Ethiopians,

Yohaness and Tedros

Cause the act goes beyond words,

No Words

Should be spared in the execution

Of a peaceful resolution

In Ethiopia's Tigray region.

Still no words

Would sound sweeter

Than we got the murderers

Chained down in tethers.

Akpan

Trying To Survive The Night

Courtesy: UNHCR

Don't wanna know how the sun

Travels round the moon.

And seriously speaking, I'm not

In the complicated mood

For a geography of tall stories.

I'm bringing my theory

Down to earth,

To us grounded in a hearth.

I'm all about the chemistry

Of self-annihilation

I'm up for a study in human tragedy

On which the race of man is sprung.

Bring out all the bombs

Throw some Uzi in the lineup,

It's the school of hard knocks.

Love don't live here.

This is where gore rocks,

Where pregnant women flee for fear.

Here it's ok to kidnap girls for ransome,

To hold school boys hostage

Even if it's just to prove a point.

Hope we still on the same page?

In point of fact, why not lose the book,

We all know these things get cooked?

Let's do this by word of mouth,

Why the river of humanity flows south.

We slot peace in the ballot box

And then harvest absolute bollocks.

It's trend of the time

And we blend 'n grime,

Now here's something we gatto do

This depends on me as you;

Shoot your hands in the sky

If you've seen enough people die. 

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

We Came From Silence

We came from silence

But we’re ready to invent noise

Perchance

We might catch fate playing coy

If not

We’ll settle for what may come

But we do our job

Onward cause we movement

We’re here to make a statement

Boom shakalaka boom

From a noiseless implosion

Until hell’s industrious crew

Earn an earth-shattering explosion

From allegiance to deafening silence

We progress by alliance

Till we are down to one

Or till the war is won

Else our job ain’t done

Akapn

A Multitude of Words

In the beginning was talk

Then a multitude of words

Made room for argument

The latter aided by pinpricks

Laid down the rules of engagement

We miss how things

Used to be

When a child was a child

And not a suicide

They got talks on the Middle East

Been trading words since I wore bibs

Peace talks to broker peace choke peace

Now it’s the Arabs

Wanna be starting Jihads

They got Nigeria and Niger

Stomping to the tune of Boko Haram

Sparking BBOGs

Raping, ‘pregnating teens

And we still negotiating…

In the multitude of words

There wanteth not wars.

Akpan

Answer the Damn Question

May I ask a question?

Of course it's loaded

Why else is it a question?

What's wrong if it's coded?

Can't you just answer

The question or not?

Whadd'ya mean it's cancer

Am I raising Cain or what?

It's just one simple question

No! I don't want a session.

Tryna get something straight

Wouldn't know if it's bait,

So what if it is?

You look scared as shit.

Whadd'ya gotta hide?

Just a simple question aiight?

Stop talkin' shit

Answer the damn question.

You ain't worth shit

If you can't play position,

Why you gotta be a prince

If you can't lead for beans?

Akpan

Bring Back Yesterday

Bring back yesterday

And with it dreams of better days;

Bring back that moment

When we almost had it all;

Bring back that treatment

Attesting men are capable of love;

Bring back one sweet day,

Make it shine thro our work and play.

Akpan

Hearts of Men

Pain resides in the hearts of men.

Like water in a coconut shell

Bitterness is gone deep-rooting

Self-appointed denizen of the inner dwelling.

Madness beget madmen

Indifference has made all a poor specimen.

It’s the wake of corruption,

Evil’s a looming mountain shading the constellation.

Blinded by apathy

Men yield their hearts to captivity.

Living behind a mask that conceals their yielding

To disease that torment the human soul

Impossible to console.

Akpan

Why We Can't Wait

I vote for peace

The kind found not in the absence of war.

The peace I root for exists in a calm, collected state of mind.

But we'll hardly attain that pedestal until we give these suicides pause;

Retaliate with lethal repercussions and serve them mayhem in kind.

If freedom is a bell, I say let it ring.

But let the hand of justice be the swing behind the ring.

Cause there will never be peace

Until every grain of sand is purged of this disease.

Now, I've heard folks argue that our fate will be dealt out by the ballots.

But when I ponder the nightmares fools unleash on my compatriots,

I say hand me a gun and toss the ballots.

They picking us out like clay pigeons and it's hard to exhale.

So if you got something to say, I suggest you step to it and not stall

Or they’ll wrench courage from our hearts. That's why we can't wait.

Akpan

Day 22: Soul Odyssey

Photo: guardian.co.uk

For Mali

We run a race of an unmarked finish line

On a track spiked like the back of a porcupine.

Men lacking the capacity for deep feeling conceived the ruthless disease

Holding out the pot of honey only to buzz and sting like bees.

Souls of mankind stranded in a maze.

The only way out is the hard way,

Cause a hint of achievement sparks up a rat race.

As human souls are absorbed by constant warfare

A state of emergency charges up the atmosphere.

It’s easy to get in but a different story getting out.

If anybody’s ever going to survive this stint is still a case in doubt.

Frustration is modus operandi

And all vanities are stretched to the extreme.

These are the times it’s almost logical

That the very core of men’s intent turns diabolical.

The race course runs through the depths of pain.

In this situation, hate seems the natural diagram to paint.

Every milestone covered commands fear to a certain degree,

We have been brought down on bended knee

And pulling it through is like the labors of Hercules.

Existing in this life is a picture perfect painting of the apocalypse.

Is there hope of a point in time a hiatus would emerge?

Cause truth is mortalized and all ethical motive sabotaged.

As a consequence for the suffering comes bitching

To devastate every sense of rationality.

If mortals are indeed architects of their own destiny,

Then right here, right now, we are from the least to the greatest, history.

Akpan