Drama

                                A little bit of attitude

Another sister impregnated

Another accidental product of a mindless twosome.

Another brother incarcerated

Politicians they call us the modern Sodom.

Now we got a new barbershop around the corner

Thanks to the system college dropout increasingly normal.

The streets are more or less unsafe

We on the bloody failure’s backtrail.

They call life a picnic

While the ghetto kid’s rationing meals.

The essence of power they abusin’

We workin’ our souls sick

They busy talkin’ sh*t.

Have a young chap share his thoughts on the future

He’ll lay it on you it’s a defect of nature

He was ever born or preserved by nurture.

Can you picture the dilemma?

Situation’s full of drama like King’s Dreamcatcher.

It’s hanging way all up over our heads

Like the sword of Damocles

Holding on to nothing but a strand of hair.

We await the promise of a ghetto miracle.

If you never been to this side of the line

You ain’t know what it means to survive.

It’s like sweet goodbyes and sad hellos.

Still a ghetto star’s never known to compromise.

In the ghetto, it’s like we locked up

Ya’ll in the hood and everything’s just clogged up:

Mama’s got a trade,

Papa’s got a spade,

Big brother’s got a shaving blade

Oh, and that’s for the barbershop.

Little sisters weaving braids

And now you know what’s up.

Politicians spitting heresies

Mouthing murderous blasphemies

But seriously, no one’s seen their taillights recently.

Society inflicting pain on bleeding injury.

My homes subjected to penury

The government ya’ll penny pinching.

Ghetto children sinking

I know some defeats’ more triumphant than victory.

We intend to change the situation

Consequences of the impasse,

Yes, we can. We full of ammunition

Redirecting our energies like a compass.

The tragedy won’t come to pass.

Got the masses

Chewing grasses

Sweating their a**es

Rulers making passes

Let’s skip these classes.

The program’s busted

Me and my crews the most wanted.

The charge?...

Gang related.

Trying to get us annihilated.

Well you know they say,

Don’t sweat it.

Raised in the ghetto for dilemma,

The nation ain’t helping matters.

We feel a hunger for survival.

The pressure’s

Way beyond measure.

If you believe we was the future

How come we ain’t treasured?

I’m burning my brains out

Trying to find the way out

It’s hard to stay on the grind

I’m freaking out on the inside.

Picture the tears in the kid’s eyes

Yet, hypocrites entertain us with lies.

Waddup in this mother?

Don’t know ‘bout chu but we call it, drama.

Akpan

Ka

After rain

…comes sunshine.

Don’t get yourself caught up on cloud nine

Cause the sun of revolution

Rises like the coming of the phoenix.

It’s the thrust of a new beginning.

After rain

…comes sunshine.

The storm done pulled me closer to the shoreline.

This feeling tells me I can make it

Riding the same wavelength with my inner mystery.

After rain

…comes sunshine.

I welcome the fierceness of a strong morning light

The positivity comes off me in waves.

This is my day.

Still I’ll have my surprise

And wake into the freshness of a startling day.

After rain

…comes sunshine

An incursion of the elemental sublime.

I exhale in the psychological moment;

I have climaxed the denouement.

After rain

…comes sunshine

Where dreams and purposes are immortalized.

My heart beats in rhythm with destiny

My soul thrives fueled by a measure of desperate intensity.

After rain

…comes sunshine

Trundling straight thro’ the pipeline.

The darkness is disappearin’

Strange, scary shadows start vanishing

It’s the seven-day theory.

After rain

…comes sunshine.

My spirit shines thro’ like silver seven times refined

I live for moments like these.

Lift up a victory ditty,

Celebrate and salute the sign of a success story.

The clouds bring rain

And the mask hides away the pain

Still I strive beyond the veil

Cause after the fire comes rain comes sunshine

And next I git mine.

Akpan

Beauty, Thy Name is Sepia

I actually did a minor editing on this poem. I believe the color (Sepia) serves the verse as a more universal theme than the place (Nubia). Hope it doesn’t hurt the message, though.

Beauty, thy name is Sepia!

A king's ransom from far-flung Sheba;

An apparition stowed away in a shade of pearly-gray.

I pronounce your name

Like a stolen child squealing, with nostalgia for its mama.

Hot shot like coals pulled out of blazing fire;

I relish your dead-of-night shade.

                       

Shadow of an immortal sun;

The tint under a copse of trees;

Riding time’s backtrail like King Tutankhamun;

And as mystery-ridden as the valley of kings.

I look to you with pride and a deeper sense of awe.

                       

Your colored reflection

Is stunning beyond complexion.

Has a mystic resonance, I swear

Cause Beauty, thy name is Sepia.

                       

I lo’ the way you control the multitude

Flossin’ that black attitude.

Positive Ethiopian

Who the winner?

The buddy with the sable attribute!

The world is your page

Grab your ink tray,

Stand true, ka-tet of Chaka Zulu;

Redemption of the tribe of Qunu.

The enchanted midnight sun;

Radiance of a Black Diamond.

                       

Who else would arraign all the charms of you?

Tho, a fool’s errand it comes across to a few?

The pleasure’s all mine

Cause Negro, you are so fine.

Black, the African identity;

A bough overleaping walls of nationality

Reminiscences of you send up a shiver

Better believe that my brown sugar

Cause Beauty, thy name is Sepia.

                       

Cloak of the night giving off its unique light;

A dusky shape against a deepening sky:

Tinge of the night that glitters.

Dark knight in black shining armor

Riding a grey mustang, armed with a Negro-spiration.

To your personality I declare my everlasting love;

The mystery and memory of Nok.

                       

Labors of heroes past;

Geniuses of African origin

Rise from their ashes

In deference to the blooming coffee tree.

For they knew not which way to go

If you did not twinkle so.

Image of a gifted race,

Complexion of sheer grace,

Abused by the trade,

Disrespected by the niggardly

But royal blood would not remain caged

We had to come once more on the throes of a dream:

Any color as long as it’s black,

Beauty, thy name is Sepia!

                       

From the West a black sun bobfloats

Flung up by the kiss of the black rose.

Ha, you are a spray of emerald on gray;

Gold dust of a rare blend and hued

Pride of the slave-

Glory of the sons and daughters of former slaves.

Tough stain of freedom,

Color of revolution.

                       

Abused and scorned tho’ you may be

Live down to no man’s expectations.

It’s justification for the sacrifices;

The high prize of emancipation.

Ride with that negritude attitude to your pride of place.

Let the world know you had to come once more.

Black soulja rage.

Patent of a third world cont.

But from the point that the last’s goin’ ta be first.

Emblem of kings of the ancient kingdom

I’ll flatter your cap with peacock feathers

Beauty, thy name is Sepia!

                       

Lineage of an African tribe

Pleasure of the African shrines.

Nature’s eclipse

Tradition’s relic

Swag of the negro skin

Sum total of his definitive characteristic

The shaded glory

Nugget of the soul origin.

Black kryptonite

I dedicate the waste of this mortal life

To vocal your tinted worth and wonder:

Beauty, thy name is Sepia!

                       

                       

Akpan

                        

Cupid's Fall

The tears from Cupid’s eyes

Spring a brook of love’s loss.

Scars of yesterday’s hurt therein immortalized.

Open wounds of the beloved’s pus’d.

Sour grapes of romance set the moment on edge

Its acid burns out the soul of ecstasy.

Hate is the lover’s pledge;

Spraying venom with spasms of elegiac intensity.

In times like these the heart is unsafe haven,

Cupid’s quiver is filled with broken arrows.

And the strings of his bow took a ten.

An ocean of tears divides the lover from reality

For the fool will barely admit, ‘love has moved on.’

Despair forms a chain-wall much like the Appalachians.

Emotion’s strung

On dead and buried rapturous eruptions;

Curses of exploited seductions.

Strange fires, unknown of passion, flair in the locus of feelings

As love marches out on tainted dignity in the procession of rust.

Tears and sorrow intervolve like waters of the Rivers Benue and Niger.

An unnerving merger.

Philia’s spirit is crushed;

The inner personae shelled;

The verdict is rushed;

The omen casts a spell;

Tenderness breaks the embrace;

Affection explodes and scatters into galactic space;

Love fails.

Spliced bonds sliced.

Mutuality is misunderstood

And the masterstroke is mortified.

The soul aches;

The man on the inside is raped in a psychological cave by

boorish flashbacks.

Hurt memories multiplied like Sahara's dunes.

Magnified gloom bears the fangs

In the legend of love’s ruin.

The beloved aches for the lover,

The lover’s heart beholds a stranger.

Déjà Vu

Would the streams forever flow?

Set up a panel for the review.

Hasten Cupid! Restring thy bow!

Akpan

Peanuts

Inspired by Dr. George Washington Carver

Step out in style,

My face in the sky,

I got what it takes; 300 talents hyperbolized.

20-20 vision

I am a revelation in motion.

No illusions

Just the upward acceleration.

Armed and dangerous

From my bones to the marrow;

From my soul to my shadow.

I’m hitting the world with gats and styles

And here is the artillery I possess:

Peanuts!

I’m a menace to mediocrity;

I am the prologue to 3rd world superiority.

Ain’t no mistakin’ it: I am loaded with ingenuity.

Faith, my basic mobility!

Stand back and watch

Cause, I’m scorching the porch

I’m blazing like a torch.

Things falling apart

Ain’t nuthin’ ruffle this fella with a heart.

Nobody promised the road was gonna be a breeze

But sheez! It’s so easy I can hardly believe it.

I finally could rest at ease with…

Peanuts!

No static;

I apply drastic tactics

Purpose-heavy like a fully loaded automatic.

I am the architect of my destiny

Waging wars without a silver spoon;

Bowing down every high thing defies my identity.

No wonder they call me the miracle!

I triumph and make opposition a spectacle.

My history is as lyrical as a Broadway musical.

I am the Atom Ant;

The harder they come . . . I drop ‘em like elephants

And with a sheer handfuls of…

Peanuts!

My inventiveness is unmatched genius.

If I can’t have the world passed up on a silver platter

I guess I’m just gonna have to take it!

I am Shorty Butter with a better buttered batter.

They say life is strung all out

Still ain’t trippin’ for nuthin’ ain’t no boy scout!

Ya’ll can call me suicidal cause I’m a believer.

Strap on my backpack. Grab my handful of peanuts.

Here I go hitchhiking on a powder keg

Cause the storm has spent its force

And a winner’s never known to give up.

That would be me with my underestimated…

Peanuts!

That’s what they called the faith of this ghetto kid

Cause each to each declared that I was born not to make it.

Well, did I prove them wrong?

Oh yeah. This ghetto kid battled the fiercest of lions;

I conquered the darkness of the dungeon

Cause I chose to rut on my feet

Than flunk a unique destiny on my knees.

Propelled thro a portal of expectancy

To a dimension where the triumphant is legendary.

It’s hard to imagine all I had was peanuts.

And no thanks to the crowd bleating, ‘You can’t.’

But the voice within came thro screaming, ‘I can!’

Beats the pants off all they conceived

The miracle I’ve so far achieved

To guess what it was with I accomplished:

Peanuts!

Akpan

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