Strange Parts

One day I’ll take a journey

It would be ordinary

I might lean a bit hard

On the sense of the word

I’ll journey far

And deep into a world

Where hearts are programmed

I’ll take a tour

Beyond the storage tank

Where exotic organic chemicals

Are processed into the dark

Laboratories where mad

Alchemists do the math

I’ll peel the database

Download the empirical formula

Until I’m face to face

With the bottom line instructions

Execute the god-factor

And maybe change the world

Akpan

The Gift Remains

I can see tomorrow

My eyes are drills that burrow

Deep to where days lay fallow

The research is thorough

And yet tomorrow never comes

I’m a man broken by sorrow

I’d lease it but none would borrow

I see war I see painted floods

I hear the sounds of rejoicing

I see shod feet running to war

I hear the flimsy choices

That perish thoughts of

Everlasting reunion

I see visions

Of fatal retribution

Like the coming of locusts

I reach out

With trembling hands

And get knocked down

Into sinking sand

I leap into the flames

Of the ravaged land

The gift remains

Akpan

I Have Been There

I have been there

And ran my fingers

Along its contours

Memory lingers

Of a terrified rictus

I have been there

It was like watching Dante

On the big screen

Like paying up the ante

For a frozen scream

I have been there

And back a billion times

What’s seen can’t be undone

No matter how time flies

Sound falls like a gong

I have been there

And I no longer care

Akpan

Cemetery Dance

I shuttle towards the clear

Where all past years are

Darkness, mold-grained darkness

Haunts the grounds like a madness

The walls are as wide

As the years come by

The cobwebs are as thick

As a hangman’s noose

And though I was a tick

I couldn’t shake myself loose

Wish I had a laser sword

To slash thro the discordant chords

What terrors lurking here

Make mortals wilt in fear

The darkness grow eyes

That pierce like filed ice

Sad tales brim and ripple

In those blood-shot circles

Songs for a cemetery dance

That drive men mad.

Akpan

I Want to Wake Up

I want to wake up.
I've had enough, already
My reality is blood and gore.
Must I bleed to know its real?

I want to wake up.
Somebody hit me upside the head,
This has gotta be a mix up
Or it's the land of the living dead.

I need a rude-awakening,
My audiovisual is frightening;
It's the Hammer House of Horror remake.
Only difference is it's all up in my face.

I want to wake up for good
I'm so done acting the fool.

Akpan

Blame it On Blaine

A poem inspired by the hell train in Stephen King's

Dark Tower IV; Blaine the Mono.

A ride on a hell train

Can’t convey such strain.

The aim’s to best Blaine;

But my brain’s so lame,

Faking snakes on a plane,

Headaches turn migraine.

This Blaine train’s a pain,

Riddle me this riddle me straight,

I can’t beat this it aint in my trait.

I’m stuck in a rage of a race.

I’m on center stage of a craze.

The street’s a blur it’s insane,

If I quit the riddles I get slain,

I hear Blain snivel maybe it’s the rain.

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 30: The Right to Remain Silent, Permanently

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 30 Prompt:

You live in a society where all crime is forgiven until 1st January every year. Upon this day, all criminals are hunted down and killed using differing techniques based on the severity of their crime. You look out the window to see that your judgement has come. - REDDIT

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 26: Crocodiles Cry Too

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 26 Prompt:

You're a door-to-door thief who visits houses when everybody is off at work, but today, you walk into someone about to hang themselves. - REDDIT

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 21: Firefly in the Moonlight

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 21 Prompt:
While hiking in the wilderness, you come across the body of another hiker. In the corpse's hands, you find a note. — REDDIT

Word count: 20k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 19: Speaking To a Dead Line

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 19 Prompt:

Children's stories are often allegorical and presented in a straightforward manner. Today, take your favorite children's story, fairy tale, or myth and complicate it. Use the original as a jumping-off point to introduce wild elements, unlikely back stories and off-center characters. - Poets&Writers

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 18: A Loaded Gun On a Hair Trigger

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 18 Prompt:

Write a story about a world where people actually get plugged into a writer's mind to read his story, thereby sharing the writer's original experience while creating the story. - Akpan

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 14: Hell's Own Movie-Show

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 14 Prompts:
When she returns home, your character finds the window broken and a meteorite burning a hole in the rug. — Writing.Com

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 13: The One Without the Fangs

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 13 Prompt:
Write a story about a breed of vampires who exhibit a strong aversion to (human) blood. Yet feed on something else which is just as fatal to humans as blood-sucking. — Akpan

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 11: Stuck in a Flawed Groove

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 11 Prompt:
You sit at the same coffee shop sipping vanilla lattes watching the world go by, one day a female barista asks you want you think about as you watch the people walk by, you respond with 'Do you wanna know?' — REDDIT

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 10: Only a Fool Believes He's Dreaming Before He Wakes Up

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 10 Prompts:

While you dig the soil for a flower-bed, you find a magical dragon bone. — Writing.Com

You had that dream again. The one where the beast with the drooping hands and wicked fangs stares you down from your window. Except the windows open this time—and you’re awake! What happens next? — WritersDigest.Com

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 9: The End of One Episode

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 9 Prompt:
During your trip to Turkey, you check into an old hotel. After settling yourself you notice a weathered chest in the corner. Upon opening it, war relics from the First World War and the Ottoman Empire lay before you. What stories do you find? — WritersDigest.Com

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 8: When Daylight Leaves

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 8 Prompts:
You cut a deal with death, you will die in 200 days but until then you will have unlimited fortune and happiness. It's day 180 and you've just met the love your life. — REDDIT

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 7: Survival is a Business of the Mind

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 7 Prompts:

Marian Bartsch and Joey Costagli meet on his first day at work. One of them had a rough childhood. Write their story. — CreativeWritingPrompts.Com

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 5: A Choice of Deaths

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 5 Prompts:

Use this plot in a short story: Darkness held a vague terror among these people, even the bravest among them. - Chinua Achebe

Write a story about the end of the world as we know it in which the undead - vampires, werewolves and zombies - dictate the scheme of things. But somehow, one group of the undead gains the whip hand over the others. - Akpan

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2015: Day 4: An Eternity of Nights

You went to bed like any other night and were out like a log in minutes. But when you woke up, you weren’t at home. You were in a car (that wasn’t yours), wearing clothes (that weren’t yours), and holding a bag full of money (that wasn’t yours). Suddenly, a police car turns on its lights to pull you over. What do you do? — WritersDigest.Com

Write about an ancient gypsy curse. — Writing.Com

Word Count: 2k+

Akpan