Day 6: Broken

Photo cyphervisor.deviantart.com

Inpired by Tina Turner

Who needs a heart when it can be broken?

And the cord of friendship severed by a sliver of whisper?

Who needs affection when it expires in a sudden

And the tears gush and run its serpentine course in a flicker?

Last night a lil’ girl took a slug to the head;

Some tried to snatch her baby bro and she ain’t let go but held.

It was money over sympathy, if you can picture the scenario;

This is Fate writing his trademark epic and making a cameo.

Love is captive of his odyssey;

Lost, draggled, and unable to chart his way thro the storm.

Mortality rate maneuvers geometric duplicity.

But hey! What do you expect when cold is the new compassion?

Who needs a heart when it can be broken?

Who needs total recall when old hurts can be reopened?

Who needs friendship when friendship betrays with speed?

Who needs a neighbor when he can turn around and stab you in the back?

Who needs sincerity when deceit gives better visibility?

Who needs fulfillment when it can be a setback?

Who needs a voice when words can be hokum?

This realm’s history is stippled in a mire of tragic inventory.

Who needs a smile when it can be betrayal’s seedling?

Folks take one look at their life and don’t seem to understand.

Man just bring himself to dig why he’s still breathing.

Seriously, who needs expectation when it can vaporize in a flash?

Who needs a heart when it can be broken?

Who needs perseverance when it can fizzle into thin air?

Who needs promises when it dies on the lips unspoken?

Who needs passion when it can lose its flare?

When the heart turns cold it can freeze up dunes of the Sahara;

And lust intervolves with strange fires and consumes like hunger.

But we have forgotten how to translate courage into victory.

We’ve had our souls seared to unfeeling and treasure ashes from former glories.

Who needs focus when it can derail and bite the dust?

The center will not hold the quality of our persistence.

And as day churns out night, darkness deepens at dusk.

Hearts which once were strung on feeling grow tense.

Who needs a heart when it can be broken?

Who needs ingenuity when it can be duplicated?

Who needs a laugh when it can be dampened?

Our travels and destinations are fiercely parted.

Who needs symphony when it can be jangling discord?

Who needs survival when it can dissolve into suicide?

We trudge along like hell’s own option; lambs for the sacrifice.

Who needs tradition when it can be tabooed?

And a set of rules when they can be trespassed?

Who needs law when sin produces its own fruit?

Who needs emotion when it can be repressed?

Who needs a heart when it can be broken?

And who needs faith when it can be lost?

Who needs alibi to travel the road less taken?

Who needs hope when it can come at a terrible cost?

Life is what we put into it but look what came out of ours;

We spun conspiracy theories and trapped ourselves in its cocoon.

Sight of this tragedy rips resolve from our bowels;

The universe is steadily feeding on itself in cahoots with doom.

But who needs little steps when you can stumble and land on your butt?

Who needs relationship when it can keel over and plunge you into deepest depths?

Who needs ears when it can be crammed with tales of love’s loss?

Who needs guts when it can dig deep to where your darkest secret is kept?

Who needs a heart when it can be broken?

Who needs zeal when it can be weakened?

People’s feelings been hardened against the thought of hurt;

Folks will do anything to conceal the impression of devotion.

We cannot open up to situations which tug at the heartstrings

Cause we’re scared of the recklessness of allure.

We tense up at the notion of what the day might bring.

Who needs kindness when it can be misinterpreted?

Who is willing to break the paralysis and strike out at inertia

At its lowest ebbs? Who needs rage to unleash the anticipated?

Who needs karma at the possibility of dementia?

Who needs reflection when painful things are real and familiar?

Who needs a heart when it can be broken?

Who needs a hush when silence can be consent?

And why lend your voice to a strange cause when you ain’t a push button?

Who needs eyes to behold when it can be license

To glimpse scenes that never needs be only to get demons woken?

Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

Akpan

Day 5: Picture

Photo courtesy: Denis Collette...!!!

To paint a picture

You must master yourself;

Anticipate the esteem your personality will fetch ya.

You require a set of principles that will divide bone from flesh.

Every morning as I step across my bedroom’s threshold into the day

I’m quietly, brushing on the canvas of reality an impression:

This is who I am; I’m making an introduction.

I’m etching the memory of me into the memory of existence.

My dream is to steer my course clear of wanton distractions

And turn the vessel in towards harbor thro the itinerary of elegance.

To etch a name on the marble of time

Implies to awaken into joyous daybreak from a long, terrible night.

The first opening of the eyelids is a decision between life and death.

You experience triumph in every intake of breath

Cause you unveiled the purpose of individuality.

To paint a picture

You need much more than a white sheet of paper;

You require an in-depth knowledge of culture.

To paint a picture is to become a shape-shifter.

You must reach beyond who you are and bind with a new nature.

I often sit and around and ponder

How much my life has evolved thro the years,

The tests which have come and made me stronger.

I’m a variety of a man who has curbed his fears.

I haven’t been crippled by what’s happened to me.

But I’ve changed, mutated; I’ve been made better.

Life has not treated me fair but I take everything it deals

In my stride. I gotta keep going one way or the other.

To paint a picture

Take it one day at a time, test the waters, test the texture.

One thing is needful. Fairly run-of-the-mill to be dismissed

As trite. I have grappled with the nature of my destiny;

It’s a delight being myself, I have realized.

And every time I take a step I seek to express the I.

This is all I live for; to achieve, to obtain, to become.

To advertize the person I am as brand,

To promote the content of my character as an item to live for.

Life can be sweet and beautiful and grand.

It’s what I tell myself

And I try to make myself see why I’m in the middle of it.

This is a world I created straight off the shelf

This is sole reason it’s a pleasure to bleed.

To paint a picture

Is to grapple with what men have grappled with for ages;

To come to inevitable outcomes and still find grace to conquer.

You have to make sacrifices and feel your way thro unique stages

Of change as you erase obstacles and erect a standard.

I am who I am because I set my face like flint.

I’ve been feeling so good playing by my own rules

Each morning the sun rises to witness in my eyes a glint;

It’s the miracle that I am; I’ve got nothing else to prove.

To paint a picture

You must define the difference between what is real and what’s unseen.

You must streamline the consequences; align faith with adventure.

Make every stroke of the brush count. Match it with your heartbeat.

Take your time, survey your environment, immerse yourself in your creativity.

You got this one shot, break new grounds like Picasso.

Keep in mind who you are, let it guide your choice of tone

To paint a picture

Is to define your essences and illustrate your existence

As a conscious deliberate, life-altering process,

It signifies to unravel the simple, minuscule precedents

And convert these into the most enchanting, glamorous moments.

This is the picture each individual is committed to create on life’s canvas.

One brush, one painter, one canvas, one landscape. It’s not math,

It’s a spiritual thing; a state of mind, like traveling with a compass.

I paint a picture

With every step I take, I aim for the portals of the future.

If the details of my life were writ in water,

I’ll freeze it up and create carvings like hieroglyphs on the Rosetta.

I am the image of One far exquisite than everything the earth has to offer;

I rep this Entity, my every action denounce His unflawed character.

When I smile I’m saying, “I can take this.”

I feel élan course thro and I know I can handle this.

All God’s creations surrounding me form the background of the painting.

My heart is strong; I’m equipped to write my own story.

Akpan

Day 4: Black Boy

You are charisma dressed up in a hueless coat of mail;

Like peering through a slit by the window pane ‘cause someone pulled the shades.

But most especially, you are you.

Dark, lovely, tinted beauty. Quintessentially, you.

You see, I envy that swank;

The way you put the attitude on black,

Like blue on the skyline.

Step to it, bro. It’s aiight!

I see the dark side of a moon

And waves flood my mind with images of you.

Your sensitivity sets the universe in motion;

Your skin tone is my favorite fascination.

I look at you, I see God’s masterplan;

Nature’s own inimitable descriptive tan.

Your charm’s a peek at a divine masterpiece.

The touch of grace on your life is an unfolding I duly commend.

I flip the page to review this centerpiece;

A little more space to etch your image into the surface.

Strength of your courage trips me on the exhale,

How you stuck to the path when it was apparent you’d fail;

How you grappled in anticipation clawing your way up from the grave.

You always held on to that something.

A certain quality which gave you an edge;

You could erect something special from a mound of nix.

I could go on and on how you’re set way up on a ledge,

About your life, your love and, your depth of devotion,

Your passionate selflessness that lights up your complexion.

This is who you are

You ought to take credit for sparking off great adventures of the heart.

You are the marvel of a black generation,

A genuine brother who set a worthy cause in motion.

I feel your rhythm as the vibes feed your veins.

And it’s only natural this level of badness never decays.

Its properties guard the memory of its hero;

Death and destruction are outmatched against it as rust on gold.

How could anyone ever imagine putting chains on you?

My D’Jango unchained. Trailing clouds of glory you arrived

Enveloped in eclipse, kitted up in finest silk of midnight.

And then you have the reputation of being uniquely African:

Intelligent, genuine attitude, and going strong cause you can.

Family before business, blood over money, death before dishonor,

A concrete institution, functional enterprise who never flunks expectations.

You bring a whole new twist to determination,

Hitting it off each time and picking off competition

Like green bottles on the wall.

You possess the greatest life of all.

This is who you are;

A black boy who commands the sum of his parts,

A diamond that discharges an uncanny aura.

Yeah, I see where you’re coming from;

I see your journey lead through pain and a sad song,

I’m a witness to the sacrifice of the prodigal;

How they hauled you away trussed, how you struggled.

I still hear the voices scorn could not altogether strangle.

I know the battles you gatto stand up to,

The everyday tough decisions you gatto make,

And the ingenuous promises you gatto make good.

You’re always on top of the game give or take.

The one sensational, unique black brother.

You exhibit panache to take the fight a step further.

You’re a wonder, a history-maker but above all, a black boy.

You’re a man with every right to live large and free

The emblem of freedom and nobody’s toy.

Rise on the wings of that knowledge and breathe.

Black boy the tint with a dint of personal eruptions,

Take it to another level, watching you succeed is such fun.

Mount up like a tidal wave,

Seize the moment like dusk claims the day.

You are who you are and you shouldn’t change that.

A person of color and explicitly dark.

You look good.

Damn if it don’t feel good talking about you.

The allegoric nightfall.

Personification of home, family, rest and love.

God must have had a hard time making up his mind

When he brushed you up in a shade of gray.

Go ahead, take the stage. Unleash your dignity and ride,

You deserve it, you made the grade.

Akpan

Day 3: Library

Inspired by the words of the legendary artist, Picasso who said, "Give me a museum and I'll fill it."

Give me a library

And I’ll fill it.

Shelves stacked ceiling high with stirring memories;

Piles on piles of resonant lyrics.

I will illuminate the reading room with flame of my inner mystery;

Paint a panorama of personal odyssey on the ceiling.

And seal every word with the throb of my heart like a stamp.

Give me one moment in time

And I will illustrate the details in a grain of sand.

I will lay out the rhymes line by line

And know glee as the vowels fall to the page.

Give me a pen and I’ll write off mortality

And explode off the page.

Give me a slip of paper,

And I’ll pull off a caper.

One word chasing the other and that another each falling into a set pattern.

I’ll fill the hollows of nature with the sound of my utterance.

Give me weeds running amuck in a nursery

And I’ll invent a garden made entirely of verse.

Give me a journal spiraled and empty

And I will give the roaring of the sea moment of pause.

Give me my vital breathing space

And I will deal out exotic verbs,

Interweave each delicate syllable like a lace.

The whole world is my papyrus.

And I will carve annals on its surface in glittering hieroglyphs.

I’ll reproduce the silence of the river right before it busts over the cliffs

And morphs into waterfalls. I’ll translate to words the groans of the geyser

One moment before it gushes out the earth’s bowels in a furious shower.

Give me a set of watercolors

And I’ll stipple a fairytale on a canvas of reality.

I’ll walk the extent of inspiration’s corridors,

And explore the minute properties of ingenuity.

Until I sip on the nectar of limitless fecundity.

And then, it’ll start all over again;

Every day will be the first day.

Give me one minute

And I’ll stretch the breadth of each millisecond to infinity.

Give me a grain of sand,

And I’ll write a library.

I’ll make each volume grand,

As exquisite as a collection of antiques in a gallery.

Give me the sum-total of nothingness

I will take it and craft the beauty of lilies.

Give me grime, a dime and time

It’s all I require to teach a soul to fly.

Give me the meekness of a dog

And the greatness of a god

And long after I’m gone, the world will remember “I was here.”

Give me a broken chord

And I’ll weave the Ekpo dance till heaven draws near;

Speed up the displacement reaction in the atmosphere.

Give me the clouds

And I’ll erase the skyline with perpetual sculptures;

Aeonian monuments whose auras reach out,

Day after day hanging up there like cosmic infrastructures.

Give me innocence

I’ll reinvent Michelangelo’s David.

Straddle a morsel of persistence

I'll shoot for the stars and this feeling is fervid.

My tomorrows nudge me with promises of good things.

Give me an oracle

And I’ll prophecy to the four winds

And from the womb spit mysteries to the last article.

Give me a soul

And I’ll make angels wish they’re human;

Let me resolve

The remaining puzzle that completes the glory of man.

Give me a room and a door

And I’ll set to writing until I drop.

Give me tomorrow

And I’ll reverse the earth’s revolution with the force of my goals.

Give me here and now

And I'll raze Mt. Vesuvius to the ground.

I came to give all I received.

I will depart this plane when I’m given.

Give me a library, if you dare;

And I’ll go to the grave my mind emptied, my palms bared.

Akpan

Day 2: With This

Photo: tmerril.blogs.com

                                          Inspired by MLK

N’ with this faith,

Ama print my name

On the pages of history.

This faith calls me to take a stand.

N’ with this faith,

I arm myself with wit to withstand.

I shall not be victimized by circumstance.

I believe in the power of a dream

As this faith speaks peace.

N’ with this faith,

Humanity will remember my name

N’ declaim my fame in every age.

N’ with this faith,

I am a god in a shrine;

Ain’t nothing can stub my shine.

N’ with this faith,

I maintain my space;

Those who desire to reach and keep their place

On the mountaintop must take the hard way.

With this faith,

I am walking through the fire

And I’m coming out hard-boiled;

With this faith,

I strike water in the Sahara

N’ if I consume poison, I shall be reborn.

With this faith,

I exalt the treasures of blackness,

A geyser of enthusiasm, I reach for greatness.

N’ with this faith,

I will achieve the impossible,

Prove myself formidable

‘Cause I am untouchable.

With this faith,

I shall stymie the inevitable,

As I perform the incredible.

With this faith,

These eyes shall anticipate the invisible.

With this faith,

I walk into tomorrow

Wielding the nerve of a hero.

N’ with this faith,

I topple titans

With a sling and a stone.

N’ with this lil’ ebony light of mine

I’m a set the world on fire

As I let it shine.

N’ with this faith,

This also shall come to pass,

For this faith within is an organic compass.

N’ with this faith,

I clean the clock of unnumbered foes.

With this faith,

Tomorrow is this close;

With this faith,

I hold destiny in the palm of my hand;

I am the perfection of God’s master-plan.

N’ with this faith,

I intend to put the world on ice;

With this faith,

Still I rise.

I am the future,

I am a masterpiece of Mother Nature.

N’ with this faith,

I print my name on the walls of this terrestrial globe,

Somebody get me my robe

‘Cause with this faith,

I rule the world.

N’ with this faith…

Akpan