He Beckons

Where are you man in grief,
In regret of past decisions or locked in brackets of unanswered questions?

Where are you man in lust,
In a pool of vain imagination or full of scorn from last night’s bile?

Where are you man in doubt,
Trapped in a cage of uncertainties or navigating the complexities of your path?

Where are you man in desperate mode,
Awake in your worries or embracing options that don’t serve you?

Where are you man in unbelief,
Crafting your ways or rejecting help from zion?

God’s hands are reaching out
Bekoning…

Accept His comfort through grief and unanswered questions.

He is reaching out, beckoning…
Accept his help to break free from that habit.

He is reaching out, beckoning…
Accept His wisdom to deal with the affairs of men.

He is reaching out, beckoning…
Accept His peace to calm the raging storm.

He is reaching out, beckoning…
Accept His son that you might have everlasting life.

Imani Dokubo
© 2023

Kings and Pawns

“We’re all Kings and Pawns,”
Napoleon Bonaparte once said,
“We’re all Emperors.”
“We’re all Fools.”

Funny he should say that.
We, like two Kingdoms, square up.
Blacks against Whites.
Decisions. Decisions.

What’s in your hand, sir?

King Pawn to King Four.
Small beginning steps we take
Believing we’re each of us
The only star in our own movie.

But Knight to Queen’s Bishop Three.
Counter moves from counter selves
We sabotage our own efforts
And wonder what’s afoot.

We’re all Kings and Pawns
Though each man in his own heart
Thinks himself different from all.
Superior to all the human-ness.

What’s in your hand, ma’am?

When Bishop takes Bishop,
And we face our true desires
We all deny our deepest truths
For Ego’s sake, for Pride’s joy.

What miserable life we lead
As we approach our end-games
This chessboard cleared of all
And the space evident in all things?

Queen to King’s Rook Three.
Discover Check. And trouble finds us.
Run we may, but hide we can’t.
Now matter where we turn to.

What is this you have in your hand,
Oh fallen man – son of Eve?
What is this you carry in your heart
Oh, daughter of the damned?

If King takes Knight Pawn,
I hope never again will it be said
That we sought for what we knew not
And that all man listened to his own heart.

We’re all Kings and Pawns,
A man once said to the world.
And he – that brilliant devil – he was right.
We’re all – all of us – Emperors. Fools.

Ask not what Mgbeke plans for dinner.
Wonder not when Mgbafo will get married.
What’s in your hand, people of God?
Mind your own business.

Nonso John
(C) 2021

THE ETHNIC WAR OF INNER VOICES WITHIN MAN

Hmmm…Have you walked down this lane?
The lane of the warring voices embedded in the mind?
Where voices rage war in the soft bones of your mind,
Over choices and decisions,
Voices sounding right under the spell of imaginative confusion,
Wrong when castrated of the spell,
Where reasoning becomes afraid to reason,
Cos even in the cause of reasoning choices coated in capsules of poison seize thy taste of choice,
Confused over nothing yet confused over everything,

Drowned in the ocean of counterfeited uncertified voices draining broken pieces of unfulfilled dreams sketched out,
These voices keep on speaking,
That the only surviving cartilage in the brain of my head has been ruptured
Unseen yet powerful and influential voices, trapped in myriads of scorn,
This is an inbuilt ethnic war,
Who can save me from this destiny device,
Where voices echo unraveled solutions and complicated ideas to same thing,
Which do my being become a slave to?

Rains of confusion has embarked on a rescue journey at the central park of my head,
Taking rest at the hallucinated desolate field of lost,
The sweet and gentle voice of procrastination has embalmed its statue in me and silenced my voice of reason placing it in the solitudinal grave of eternity,

I wear smiles wrinkled on the inside,
Spraying the perfume of faded smile to avoid panel of questioning,
Inner pimples has eaten deep my dimpled mind of rest,
Hiding under the cloaky face care of MARY KAY
To bring out the dimples amidst the pimpled troubled mind,

Which voice do I cling to?
The sugar coated diabetic voice or the fading- like silent voice embedded with thorns and water logged pathway to destiny,

OH!!! OH
War of voices within…
My soul has become aged at the peak of my youthful mind,
Let me think and make one… my permanent abode for a gloomy doom await the confused mind making choices,
Follow me on my journey but with cautioned silence.

Kanu Nonye

© 2018