What to pray about

Hello, My name is Niel and these are the ChristaPoet Freestyle Sessions. This year, ChristaPoet wants to give you a special perspective to our freestyles. At first, some of these poems were published as stand-alone pieces. But in actuality, each poem is an untitled part of freestyle session. Each freestyle session is given a topic for the poems to address.

On this particular day, March the 26th, 2021; the topic was “What to pray about”. There was silence in the large Christapoet group, apart from my own prattling about the topic of the day and my reason for choosing it. This sort of silence is kinda normal. But at 8:28pm… Hanna Azubuike wrote:

Pray about your heart to God
Pray about your art to God
Pray about your mine to God
Pray about your gold to God
Pray about your genes to God
Pray about your offspring to God
There would always be a reason, so pray without ceasing

And at 8:35pm, UC Truth retorted:

Pray your desires
My teacher once said
When you feel it you probably should say it
To God

So I come bare when I pray
When I pray I come bare
Stripped of all what God should not hear
I come with screams and silent
I come with words and rhymes like a poet
I come with sobs too
And mutters too

I’ve prayed about the mansions and the gutters too

I don’t know what you know about what to do when you come to pray
But I’ll never want to keep from God
An atom of what I really wanted to say to him today

Yeah. The two of them wrote from somewhere real. You see, sometimes, a topic touches you or reflects your current dilemma or just provides an opportunity for you to say something…

Like what Olufunke Ajegbomogun said at 8:44pm.

We don’t want to bother God
Says man made of mud
So we bottle up what we ought not
Leaving our mind in knots
You receive not for you ask not
What to pray about,” You say?
All things my brother, so you don’t become a prey
Everything my sister, on every blessed day
So Unfriend anxiety
Cast away it’s ray
Put on Christ’s piety
Your armour of faith
Whatever it is
Grand or small
Possible or impossible
Serious or minor
Pray about them all
Yes! In all things by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving…
So go on your knees
Lift up those hands
Put your hands together
Lie down flat on your tummy
Stand on your feet
Sit on the floor
Whichever position you choose, just shut out the noise
Surrender all
Cast it to God
Receive His rod
Believe it’s done
Make a loud noise
Wait till it comes

Some of these pieces and sessions, I remember like…an old friend. Some are like a stranger that has been sent to instruct me. I didn’t write anything, nor did anyone else, that night. It was all like a long whisper telling us “what to pray about”.

I believe that if you had read any of these poems on their own, you would get a part of the picture. Now you see them together, I think it’s a more wholesome picture. Tell us what you think, and see you next time.

Authors:
Hanna Azubuike
UC Truth
Olufunke Ajegbomogun

Rape Rep

I represent the biggest scums of the century.
I represent one of the greatest threats to women globally.

Your body is already a beautiful battlefield. A rose with thorns torn apart by it’s blueprint. It is not enough that your body cries rose-coloured tears monthly, some members of my gender have turned your pores into drawers for stashing away years of frustration. Tiny portals of escape, from which they seek prison-breakthroughs. Scofielding along your orchards, fuelled by animalistic passions.

Do something
That’s what I’m trying to say
Show me I am worth the pain, give me hope to a fault; tell me life has a meaning

That’s what I read in your diary
I am what you blame for dying, greet
One of the biggest
scum in existence
Women, they fear me
My favourite victims
…Men mostly in prison.
I am traumatizing

We’ve got a new brand for the parents
Comes with the power to pay rent
Found out I am recycling
Let’s leave the topic quietly
I’ve come from an old day
People started that way
Ignoring any volition
But theirs, until…

Ice Nwa Ǹkwọ
Niel Quchi
© 2020

reVERSED: The Life and Times of Jesus

What if someone from the life and times of Jesus sends a poem to you today, detailing his/her/its first-hand experiences with Jesus?

Would you like to read?

Well, imagine our surprise when we found these poems in our e-mail boxes.

Trust me, you’d love to read these.

Click this link to download.

‘Nonso John
Editor

STRANGE AS A SUN

Nothing so strange as a Sun filled night.
Nothing more real as a Son filled darkness.
Such peace, when our fingers intertwine.

Nothing so strange as darkness posing as light
Nothing more surreal as a blue sky when heartbroken
Such madness, when our wits are feeble

Nothing so sweet as freedom
Nothing more special as owning nothing
Such wisdom, emblazoned in knowing you own nothing

St Davnique
Symolean
© 2020

Quench the Sun

Let’s quench the sun
Let’s build up so high we touch God
Let’s give our ambition unlimited freedom

Let’s watch ourselves fail
Let our tongues wail
Let’s watch our unity break

Babel was always doomed
We never thought it through
Without God failure is what we do


Lets set the sun ablaze
Lets burn up the skies
Lets choke the heavens with smoke
Lets kill the Light

Let Light be dead
That sin may reign
That Day be dead
And Night be Lord

Let earth again be void
Formless and dark
Lets make a world
Without a God

So says the fool
In her own heart.

Godswill Ezeonyeka
Kator Steven
© 2020

LET

Let the wind do its bidding
Let it be free from it’s burden
Let its beauty be the sun
Let its glory be only for the sun
For when the sun becomes its crown,
Its destiny has been fulfilled

Let the moon sing for the lovers
Let its magnificence be as the museum, Louvre
Let it create a pendant of memories;
A never ending pile of stories.

Azubuike Hannah (The Beloved) & Symolean
© 2020