Day 13: Threshold

Photo: mubi.com

I take a walk with myself down the corridors of sedate secrets,

And the perplexities I behold will rip open the veins.

The walls are decorated with serrated paneling. 

Time and consequence fled the stage

And left behind a trail of blood and a well turned strip of ruin.

But inside, my heart still finds courage to be strong.

Like many of the stuff which defies chemical analysis, it’s an exception to the rule.

And if I had to erase a strip of 10,000 walls,

At this point, I am of the opinion that brawn alone is an insufficient tool.

I strive for an opening in every vault of opportunity I access.

I have to you see, I am consciously grooming my inner biceps.

It’s funny how time flies

Just when you’re beginning to get a hang of things.

How the weight is thrown off enthusiasm just before you glimpse the finish line.

It’s hard to imagine standing in the middle of these eccentricities.

I’m swinging all I am on the carousel, perfecting the life cycle.

The storm is gathering up forces from a gale,

It’s the testing of everything for which I became disciple.

I close my eyes and hold my course; waiting to exhale

This is the one question eternity stands still to answer

Besides, I haven’t the slightest intent of changing stanza.

The taste of victory’s been slapped out of my mouth

And I pine for one more view of the clouds.

Life gets in the way of imagination

Working itself out in cavorts with the machinery of dissociation.

One more step and I’m in the coven of dangerous things;

Trapped within the hollows in these walls are forbidden screams.

Sounds that will pierce deaf ears and wake the dead.

But I’d rather confine my search to properties promising prospect.

Wordless voices, ghosts from the past deliver lethal utterances

Like grim oracles from a shrine uttered in present perfect tenses.

I ought to turn around and flee the horror at the end of the corridor;

I ought to disengage and lay off pursuit; turn off my fervor.

But the thing with the heart is it does what it wants to do.

I can’t quit the adventure; can’t hold still, I gatto move to the groove.

Incarcerated by my passion I hear my bones creak as I

Struggle to resist the urge in the wake of inescapable soul sacrifice.

It’s funny to think I was out to catch up on some fun.

And now here I am, I got my butt stuck in a rut and all.

But as a legend once said, Life goes on.

Akpan

Day 12: Impossible is Unacceptable

Photo: bridgingtheunbridgeable.com

Forces of limitation are held captive by their own invention.

But like a 20/20 vision, I see through distinctly.

I will not be denied access into triumph by random distractions.

My intent is like burning glass and illuminating,

So you should understand when I insist,

Impossible is unacceptable.

I remain undiscouraged by erratic tendencies.

Although, the road’s probably inaccessible

A little voice informed me that resource awaits me

In the most unlikely and difficult places.

Like a pack of ice in a lake of fire

Inventing a niche with a molecule of desire.

The decision to take a stand fortified my mind

Against the gimmicks of persecution.

So I put my back to the grind

And locked my destiny in position.

My dream is brilliant like an HD picture.

It’s ever before me, and shoots me over dilemma.

My faith revitalizes my composure.

Like a foretaste of one day in forever

Are the particulars of the struggles I encounter,

To compare the evil I go through with the blessings I perceive.

And with due respect to all that’s inevitable,

Impossible is and will always remain unacceptable.

Akpan

Day 11: Ghetto Chronicles

Photo: thwordinc.blogspot.com

I am a ghetto kid strung-out on a cache of shattering experiences. 

I spit details of my life on the breath of deathless utterances.

Sired into one of the basest classes in the gutter

It was extremely tough imagining life as a picnic.

I lived each day of my life in extremis to the letter

And believe me when I say I wasn’t your everyday skeptic.

It was the same old song

If you’ve been around these parts you know what I’m talking about.

Situation got me gone

And my business gave me a runaround.

Barely pulled through the different levels of school.

It felt like battling hell’s industrious crew.

The rut in the system sort of caught up

Now I’m kind o’ dreaming on testing the waters of illiteracy

Seems the ivory towers are all washed up.

What the hell so, I flipped it

And got my butt admitted into street college.

Look at the results and embrace novel proof of ingenuity.

Couldn’t exactly speak for my former colleagues.

But misery is a staple of everyday ghetto living

Keep taking blows, act tough but I can’t see myself leaving.

Not even when circumstance bears fangs like the African Boomslang.

I was brought forth in the ghetto,

Came of age in the ghetto,

Nurtured by the ghetto,

And now repping the ghetto.

Point is you can’t put the blame on me

I am what the ghetto made me;

A victor of circumstance,

My personal veritable comeuppance.

For I am not ashamed of the ghetto gospel

For it leads me on through this entire ghetto bustle.

I am the future and a youth

But the plans they got for me is the substance of a fluke.

They label me hoods.

Please, don’t be cruel.

I am what society made me too.

I have plodded through tough times.

And I have navigated the roughest miles.

Been an inch from mortalizing

But I kept right on laughing to keep from crying.

Cause I did come to recognize the purpose of life:

It’s not the days of our life but the life in those days

Which produce the bursting out of individuality revolutionized.

As I unbottle suppressed memories you’ll be amazed.

Easy to say, I guess

But reality abides in the mind’s meditation.

Tomorrow may not pass the test

As a figment of delusion.

I have borne such losses that could only be imagined.

And there’s the chronic pain that’s still hurting.

All for want of a silver spoon,

Tribulations of the experienced fool.

But through it all I sure did find

A worthy cause for which I’d put up a fight.

I know where my happiness is

I have received the revelation of my genesis.

You live in the ghetto,

You survive or die in the ghetto.

That’s the way it is

That’s the way it’s always gatto be.

Looks like I’m stuck in the game

And things will ever be the same.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothin’

Chronicles of a ghetto kid.

Akpan

Day 10: Hard Impact

Photo:stag-sunnybeach.com

Ill winds blow over the seas,

Moaning as it drives the breakers like a plaintive mother.

The lung of the land is chockfull with seeds.

Still, sterility devastates like a trench mortar.

Like a ruthless feeling disease

Corruption plagues the souls of men.

All we like sheep rid of their fleece

Rush over the cliff and some meet their end.

People is trapped in the game

And they’re barely surviving

The tempting of the pain

And the intruding of vices.

Paradise is unattainable

And the brimstone is highly available.

We’re virtually waist-deep in it

It’s like an open sesame into ill.

Nobody finds peace in the oracle;

We are the mutual subjects of ridicule.

Tears from a baby’s eyes

Speaks a tome about the no-good years.

The land sighs

But the spear point is clear.

Within the bedlam an illusion emerges,

A smile is an adeptly concealed grimace

In the release of repercussive allergies.

How long before we all pine away?

The torture is excessive you can’t stick out under.

Yet, there remains this pervasive emotional trauma

Clogging up the recuperation gear.

This is no easy route we travel

Even though the path we tread was assigned from the navel.

We seem to seek a bleak respite

Awaiting hope with a fearful expectation, in spite.

Our tomorrows is dead and buried

In the same coffin with all our hopes and dreams.

Deep sixed in a yawning abyss.

Darkness hides the horizon,

Deep darkness the coming of dawn.

What is enough?

Could this distress not account for too much?

Life stings with a venom.

Has the resolution being torn out the book?

I feel my soul wrenched by sadness attack

Hankering to be let off the hook.

Anguish stalks in to plunder on contract

Too weakened to fight back

We dread the hard impact.

Akpan

Day 9: Last Breath

Photo: xawatifx.deviantart.com

Before my last breath puffs me across the threshold;

Before corporeal beauty decompose’

Before I shut my eyes in death

After I’ve spun my last thread.

Before I breach the bounds of my earthly days;

Before I finish my race.

Before mortality is swallowed up by immortality;

Before I taste the first day of eternity.

Before my veins collapse

And my sleep outlasts

My waking indefinitely.

Before my soul traverses infinitely.

Before I see God as a tried and true specimen.

Before Kingdom Come, before the epitaph of sentiment.

Before this flesh is six feet deep

In that place where honey is no longer sweet.

Before the point of no retreat

Where I no longer deserve the pleasure of wit

To survive on this impermanent terrain.

Before I’m MIA from earth’s surface.

Before my last breath,

I’m gonna breach the breadth of creativity’s depth.

Akpan

Day 8: Hope Triumphs Still

Photo: realityandhope.com

For Mandela

Hope triumphs still.

Even when sailin’ on thro a fog, he’s the chieftain of his own domain.

He’s like an athlete stoned on a rush of adrenalin.

Hope’s endowed with a tendency to reach beyond this terrestrial plane.

Hope ain’t a reward received when you accomplish your goals;

Hope is the vibe which drives your goals and keeps the forces of change on their toes;

Channels all the positive influence at your disposal.

When nightfall breaches your perimeter,

Hope trundles on with a fierce urgency.

When your strength trickles off in days of adversity

Hope triumphs still.

Life’s support system when the dam breaks;

Hope never fails.

In the darkest corner of insensate despair,

Hope is the voice crying out to deal out repair.

In the morning light, when terrors from nightmares invade your privacy;

In the face of impregnable foe when skepticism ruins your fantasy;

Hope says, “You are going thro so you can come out.

“Here’s my hand, you can make it if you choose not to stay down.”

Take this magic and ignite your private lil’ world.

Truth will come crashing home after you pass thro the eye of the storm.

Hope triumphs still.

When fear rocks the earth to its very foundations,

You can count on a hopeful outlook to be your aileron.

Remember to set your eyes where rut and decay can’t hold a candle to it.

Striving above your ability means tackling the issue till you achieve.

Be strong in your heart. Keep your eyes peeled for the light at the end of the tunnel.

And when you find it, make a break for it.

Every good thing will come to you on the threshold of faith. Come fire, come hell.

When life’s being bitchy grab it by the lapel and say, “I ain’t done with you.”

Then pick up the pieces, dust off your butt and push on through.

Somebody’s looking out for you and all he wants is for you to understand

Hope triumphs still.

When opposition outguns you and you’re stranded without a plan,

Give ‘em the fight of your life. You’ve been placed there for a reason.

Thrive beyond your limits; train the heat on adversary thro your mental prism.

Every time you lift your head from under a burden, it’s a declaration of victory:

Hope triumphs still.

Akpan

Day 7: Somethin' Better Than Silence

Photo courtesy:  Greg Annandale via Flickr

I opened my Writing.Com account 4 years ago, on April 7th, 2009 which makes today my very own WDC Account/ my blogging debut Anniversary.

This is for WDC, the greatest online writing community and for all those years of doubts and tests.

The entrance of poetry

Is as smooth as the feel of silk.

Pumping verve into the system like blood from the artery;

Lubricating the lungs like a mugful of milk

Words in full blossom bounce off the throat’s walls in a lilt

And feed passion into the bed of the soul patching it like quilt.

There is a substance far more cherished than silence

And the reason is simply ‘cause it’s the nitty-gritty of it.

The throb of the heart accelerates in deference

As the words fall to the core and splatter into immortal nuance.

The chirping of crickets is magnified;

You can almost hear the chimes as the wind strums blades of grass.

There’s music in the silence of stars in the night sky.

As emotion is amped up it becomes a compass;

The beauty in the wretched and despicable lay bare.

The imagery of a worm as it burrows thro sloughy soil will oil your gears.

Poetry is the music of silence,

The symphony of muted moments,

Poetry adds the magic into the special instance.

It is the vibe in the spine of a hush.

Verse is the swing in the wing of a tranquil plush.

There’s a lilt in every still,

And a mystical lyric in every serene,

There is a jaunty rhythm in every peace,

And this rhetoric is the sum of poetry.

Yes, that is poetry.

The universe surrenders itself

To be explored, drilled, and thoroughly harnessed.

All things bright, beautiful, and wonderfully deft

Spill out in unique colors, exquisitely dressed.

Poetry’s rainbow does not merely promise the pot of gold,

It delivers on that promise on the sound of drum rolls.

Good poetry is a river of peace flowing down.

The haunting sensation is finely tuned as cadence is found.

What is better than silence?

Allow me to introduce you to poetry.

It is the beauty when sound takes a leave of absence;

It is the muse that makes quietness part of his appeal.

This is the single attribute greater than silence;

The concise explanation of the spiritual property,

The lone article from where silence derives its competence.

Poetry gives soundlessness its precedence.

Life is poetry. Fluid and satin, sweet and full of adventure.

Stanzas cut like rusty razor blades. It goes right to the core.

It’s like the mapping of an enchanting itinerary,

Poetry can make you cry, laugh, mad. It can be quite a trip.

And ‘he who casts to write a living line must sweat.’

Poetry is the language of the world’s peoples, every man/woman’s dialect.

It’s the breath of Mother Nature; her vital quintessence.

Speech is silvern, silence is golden, but poetry is diamond.

This is the pathway into the heart of Divinity’s Presence.

Each phrase coated with meaning nudges you onward.

And I’d rather have poetry than silence;

I’d rather be versed in stillness and recline

Than possess all the peace void of poetic license;

I’d gladly give up all the calm in the world for one solitary line

From a verse of poetry and ride the wave of its stirring,

The lyric in peacefulness that serves all yearning.

Silence is poetic and that makes it instructive.

Now, there’s something better than silence, ain’t it?

Anyone who had a heart could feel the pulse in placidity,

Experience the release of tension when the lyric of repose busts in.

One thing’s better than silence.

Only one and it is the voice of silence; it’s perfection.

Poetry is silence maximized and enhanced;

Pure untainted silence is the soul’s percussion.

Silence can be that and more when touched by poetry.

Cause the latter and the former have the right interpersonal chemistry.

Each line like gas torches has a knack for sparking a flare,

That’s what poetry is; the lunar sullen stare and, the solar fiery glare.

Poetry is nature’s definitive oratory in its purest form.

It’s the counsel of troubled souls; focus of the reflective mind.

The harbinger of radiance and mystery reborn.

This is the language of paradise;

The speech of silence and decibel of serenity.

Poetry is the measure of the caliber of tranquility.

There is poetry in every quiet and as explosive as napalm.

An unmeasured tempo resides in every state of calm.

Akpan