ALL THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS

All the beautiful things are the diamonds and the gold
they luster in the ray.
A beautiful thing is the aura in the day
at down it grows old.

Beautiful things are the terrains at fall
that grins with a green
A beautiful thing stands tall
robed with all sin.

Once I loved a beautiful thing
but she left me with this scar.
She showed me a throne where I rose to King
but she died in the car.

Beautiful things are Hopes and Promises
Beautiful things are Fragile Glasses.

AMAN AKPA

 
Seven times you came
Seven times you left
How we did not know?
Seven times is heartless Aman Akpa
Seven times you've sucked our mother's breast to drought
Seven times indeed you left it sagging
Seven times is cruel Aman Akpa.
Seven times you heartlessly came toying with a home
Seven times we smiled and cackled in laughter
Seven times we jumped and told our friends we had a brother
Seven times we frown and cried that you are gone
Oh Aman Akpa!
How you would have hunt and bring meat to our table
How you would have sailed and bring fish to our kitchen
Father is old, there is no fisher nor hunter in the family
But you chose to defile our home with happiness and grief.
How many goats we've sacrificed for your birth
How many more after your deaths
Yet you kept coming and coming to go
Oh Aman Akpa!
You have made our mother old through the blood shed at your births
You have made her a failure in the eyes of our father's people
You teased her with a son you could not be
And here again for the seventh time you lay dead in this shroud
Oh Aman Akpa!
 

VIKINGS

 
Skol! Skol! Skol! Skol!
They chant as they drank rum from a skull
'Skol!' I replied as we drank from a skull
The sons of Ragnar son of Odin
We are the direct blood-line of the great Odin.
Skol then!
To pirates with no aim
Fooled to hit the street stealing from passers-by
Wasting their lives in nuisance thinking they are warriors
And yet scale over the highest walls at sight of the police.
Skol! To soldiers that run
Skol! To thieves that are not rich
Skol! To freed slaves used by political overlords to kill their brothers
as they campaign for power
Skol! To a pirate with a pirated life
If Ragnar is your father then skol to your shame!
Where is the honor in being a viking?
Killing innocent people and killing each -other?
Where are the ships you sail?
Why do you thwart the good crafts of the great Floki
By sailing our boats on blood
A voyage to no mean harvest
A landing to no mean shore nor capital.
Ragnar our father was a farmer,
A farmer turned king
A king turned god
He always wanted to conquer lands for us to farm
He fought and conquered for the common good of his people.
Skol! To King Ragnar Lothbroke
Shame! To voyageurs with no ships
Shame! To Nigerians thinking they are Scandinavians
Shame! To every Nigerian Norseman
Shame on plaza and Calabar South boys
 

BIBI

I don't know if this's a rap or a poem
Or a song, or some words.
But I'm writing from my heart to your heart
as an art not an act Bibi...
Not an act Bibi...
For I had lived a tale
and a life in a dale
With a heart that was stale
Until you came...
And until you,
I'd always believed in a tale
A tale of people with arts of hearts.
They're soldiers with axes in hands
to shred 'n'o tear,
to hurt 'n'o bruise 'n'o maime,
to instil terror and to wound,
To inflict pains with their greed...
They call it love I call it Lust
Cause they're lost as they must
Wallowin n swimmin in the darkness n the void of innocent ignorance...
Ignorance is bliss,
but for this bliss I will hiss
For hearts broken without mend,
Souls loathing in the mix euphoria of both regrets, anger, love and hate.
They can't distinguish what to keep or what to feel
Hybrids of emotions
As they rile perplexed.
But you,
I mean me,
I meant you and I
Here we are facing the reality of their fantasies
Blessed from their mess
Taking a risk that is worthwhile
Cause every journey unveils a new phase
Our journey will never end
Everyday is another start anew we're fond of each other
Our love newly found
Even though we hit our cross-roads,
We have made the best decisions so far
Cause our hearts are tied
Cause without you there is no me
Without me there is no you
Without us there is no us.
The world would be amused when I say
I respect your virginity and you respect my locks
Amused they are while we make em our muse
We are abused, but they are used...
I wish they could learn from us
Because for us there is no end even in death,
Even in death we will brace in embrace as we rile to the next phase.
Oh Bibi,
My love
My beats
My ink and my music
My mirror and my muse...

DEPRESSION

I dye my hat with black,
'I die my heart with black'
Dread by love, shred by tobacco
Hood's pussy stinks like hoes'. 

No love lost, no love found
Except for Christians begging me to born-again
like I'm sin obtained.
Hip Hop saying another,
I hate my reflection.

I hate beliefs and religions and Gods
I hate ordinances and laws.
Friends and foes will someday gather
over my carcass after I hang myself with this rope.

But wait!
Why the haste to death when Libya and Congo are going to war?

I drink and smoke,
reminisce the past
Yesterday will never walk back to life
Nor dead memories throw back to breathe.

If I bleed Tomorrow with this Pregnancy
Who will give birth to History?
The Hall of fame is all man lives for
or he lives for nothing.
 

PARADISE

When we will wake with wings together to the cloud
With songs of praises and love in the crowd
To meet the Lord in majesty for his grace we'd loss
And share in his glory as his agonies in the cross
Will you be there?
Or will you be here?

We shall leave to live forever and to rule with Christ
Live in heaven's show and forever in life
Seize the Devil, so Death cease to exist
In the power of our King decayed is made alive.
Will you pay the wages of sin in death and cries?
Will you be there or here in Jah's restored Paradise?

When Micheal's steel cover the waters with blood like lipton in tea cups
Will you play with lions or with sinners ache in shivers and hiccups?
 

HUMAN FOR HALF A SECONDS

 
Everyday I wanna be a man, a proper human
To love and to hate, to fear and to be sad.
I wanna date, dump and have sex and talk bout the opposite sex with my friends
I wanna go to amusement parks, gallop on horses and see movies
And just be a regular human.

Sometimes I wanna be tied to wedlock
To raise kids and be a father
And get stuck the rest of my life with a woman I love.
Sometimes I wish to stick to a religion and go on pilgrimage
I want to be devout and hold to loyalties
To destroy everyone and everything contrary to my beliefs;
I just wanna be human for half a second...

To cry in laughter and laugh in tears
To pretend like everyone out there
That I'm in love while in hate
Or in hate while in love;
I just wanna be human for half a second...

But then I see myself transcending into glory and power beyond the human comprehension
I see myself traveling the world in search of knowledge
In search of answers to your questions
I give up my life just as life itself gave up on me to satisfy your curiosities
I carry the cross,
For you people I carry the cross to Golgotha's place
And with this cross I find peace.

How would I not be insane then if I find peace and comfort being nailed to the cross?
Do I ever make sense?

No!

I am mad. My poetic devices are mad
My freedom in this verses are mad
But you too remain mad until my madness becomes sanity.

How then can I be human if my wisdom becomes madness and my assertions becomes maddening?
If I could be human for half a seconds to be as sane as you
In hating and killing each other
In going to wars over greed and piling wealth
And yet to grow old and die
Oh ye foolish Humans!
 

VULTURES

 
Vultures are feasting on the remains of unleavened bread
offered as a burnt offering to God
Vultures are feasting on the carcasses of stillborn
With bald heads on emaciated skin
shivering in the cold.

Nobody cares, kings rule,
The politics kill them, they are led to the pit
They are offered as burnt offerings to God.

The house of God is a rotten den
Infested with epidemic and immoralities.
Dirty, stinking, unswept and unkempt,
The porches and the tabernacles are eaten by termites

So I look up to the sky of lost forgotten stars
I see a weary God
mourning over a bleeding son.

Is there God?
Many ask,
I ask myself...

'There is no God' the most knowledgeable answer
The religious fanatics argue

But I see no God in a weary God in heaven
mourning over a bleeding son makes there be God.

Do I ever make sense?
I am a fool compared to these poets that lack reason
Reason does not bring me spectators
I am not a man

For I see Vultures feasting on each others sinews
Left to die in the drought and famine

How dare God judge any man?

The world is helpless in brute
Killing each other for one God.

I see that the sun shall rule the night
I see that a virgin shall labour in pain,
I see that the lion shall wed the antelope
I see that the dead shall help the living

I see Vultures
When in lucid sleep I dream...
 

A Survivor's Tale

 
We were born out of wedlock,
Out of an unfortunate accident involving two unguided teens.
Our mother abandoned us barely two months old,
two months old ruddy infants she left
For our father denied the pregnancy.

We grew up with grandmother
in a castle made with bamboo and mud
where the thatch leaked in rainy seasons
we lived in a basket dipped into water
our bones creaked the bamboo bed as our sinews shiver and twixt in cold
like a dehydrated leopard hide dried for the drum.

But we were princes with enhanced minds
surviving among rustic people in a jungle of savages
defeating hunger
Nursed grandmother's hopes as we grew in understanding and wits.

Father came late in life to take claim of his seeds
Too late perhaps to tame our demons
for we were already stocked in our ways
as survivors and warriors mold by nature
to be nothing but hard and strong

We grew up unguided as teens
We grew up rough and rouge
We lifted shops for fun
There was no one,
Dad was working and getting home late
Danny started smoking,
As if that was not enough,
One day something happened

He died!

My whole life came crashing like china on a staircase
I was empty and the trauma sank me into the seas of oblivion
Every curtain became bleak and black
There was no silver linen
Every horizon became dark
Daddy lost his reason to life,
Lost his job and pick up the bottle
He lost everything to saving me...
For the car crash that took my brother spared me not without a price.

I had to move on without any aid
Life is a choice, but birth is a fate
Once I had no reason to live
Now I will roar like a wounded lion
And pluck blessings from my curses.
 

ATONEMENT

As Luna glows her glamour beam
To celebrate the dusk,
The water nymphs dance to a ballet theme,
An evening full of musk.

They spread their limbs like butterflies
To greet the changing tides,
A flowing rush streams through widened eyes,
A group of wedding brides.

Between the pines a washed rebirth
That's clean and white and due
Exudes a sense of pax on earth
It all begins with you
As God through Christ our sins atone
Shows at death you're not alone.

SOLD

 

The Lord pushes her slave to and fro
To and fro, to and fro
like the swing as the wind wush into her pride
To and fro for his rights earned a stride.

She cooks for him just as she's placed
And for all minor things she was graced,
Satisfies his pleasures in his cubicle
And multiply as commanded is her miracle.

An African woman sold to disgrace,
They sold her pride, sold her face
Sold her rights at wedlock at a price
That the creator despise.

They call it 'dowry', a customary rite
That quenches the aura and dims the light
of what a true African woman should be
In the ignorance of their forbears they have bent to tarry.

For Hamatterns had wilted, moons changed,
Schools have planted on our foreheads a new eye.
Yet, our parents are still deranged
They still sell us out to die...

They still think the female child is worthless
And is to be dispensed
They send us to school and make us valuable
They feed us a honest lie

They call it dowry
They pretend they love us
And then they bargain on that day even with the men we truly love
They sell us out and drive us from where we grew.

The African woman is a slave no matter where we go
We are sometimes only fortunate to be sold to a good master
We are sold by our parents to him at a price
We are a commodity...

LETTER TO A PEN FRIEND

 
You have your feet washed and oiled with ointments of strong fragrance
And yond blue sky of which mine bellows like a tattered kite is your limits
What is here to envy in this sick emaciated skin that needs deliverance?
Is it the charred future or the low lone life that had been chipped in bits?

Yours is a castle and a bed warmed by parental embrace.
Love curls you around like a python around it's prey that the cold winds don't penetrate.
I lay my poor senews on borrowed beds picturing the end line of another race
When the next morning light bulbs 'what will I eat?' I'll meditate.

But you have a life that looks like a savanna grassland green in pastures and fertile
And you yourself remind me every day what a low life I am dropped outta college
I frown a smile over it and watch my bloods mustar the tile
And with a big ego and a traitorous heart you keep kicking this 'less-with-no-previllege'.

You took away all that I loved and everything I ever wanted
You took away everything and even the things yourself never wanted
You told hem lies, misled hem, made hem see me as a villian
Used my history and my attitude to turn me into Satan
Made my flaws italiced and bold enogh to scare the angels
I played Devil in your scripts of lies and lose everything for you lead the Angels.

Not even once do I fight back, but you keep dragging me in the mud
You pulled my garments of repute and merge it in charcoal water
I became as dark as night a mad man that feeds from the manger cud
And I can look into all of their eyes those turned against me, my eyes burning with fire
They are mad and brainless
They are blind, washed and senseless
 

I AM JESUS CHRIST

Oh, look!
How I'm beaten and battered by life.
Look how they pierce my side with a spear!
Look how I fold the whole universe into one ball
and carry it on my shoulder;
I am Jesus Christ!

I had saved the last hour for both fiends and friends
How would I know Zombies from men's mask?
I couldn't.
So I grew in between tares that grew boundless like vegetables
And wrap their octopod tentacles around me.
I am Jesus Christ!

I have built many grave stones as well as dug many graves
I have worshipped many ghosts
and say dreams speech jokingly.
I have tended myriad relationships
that shatter like Chinas rolling down a staircase
I guess then I am not Jesus Christ.

Now I have hit another cross-road
And the whole universe is upon my shoulder
I have neither a compass nor a map
I know not where to go
Should I throw the world into this abyss?

Look!
The Gentiles have gone to war
They say the Lord is coming
With sword and a scale in hand
To give to every man according to the size of his cup a drink
Who shall escape 'The Great Doomsday'?
Nobody!

Then we shall all perish
because holy or unholy all have one  'hommy'.
The same river run down our veins
It all runs down to the tree planted by the banks of Euphrates.

But I do not believe the books
Whether there's Satan or not
Or if Job was a faithful and Ahab a mislead
If Abraham is the father of faith,
Or if the Bible is a story book as argue some philosophers
But I do believe there's a just God
Who cannot destroy his own
Made from his image
How can humans be perfect when they were cursed?
If a man acts under a spell, he is not guilty.

I am Jesus Christ
because I think more than you.
Sometimes my eyes spin in its optics
and my tongue stick in between teeth as I grit
I am insane with sanity.
Science is a fool, Philosophy is an ingrate
I have no time for lies and madness.

We're already burning in Hell
There's no Hell Fire
The sins of our forbears had already visited us
And we shall go through corruption in Hades.

But I alone will fight your wars
For I am your god.
I shall stand as the lawyer between you and God
I am Jesus Christ!