My Shepherd

It’s in His nature to provide for me even when I don’t know what I want.

He feeds me with goodness and floods peace to my soul.

By His name, He restores me to sight each time I lag.

Even though I walk through hot coals with bare feet unending, He swallows up my fears in comfort with healing and gifts in His bosom.

He sets me up for royal treats in the darkest storms and redeems me with the outpour of his spirit and an overdose of merriness and joy.

Surely goodness and mercy follow me forever as I am now a host of His eternal spirit and life.

As the years draw nigh

With love shining in many forms

Like a rose among the thorns

I have come to understand and believe that everything written in the 23rd Psalm seized to be my responsibility the day I said YES to Him, my good Shepherd.

Imani Dokubo

(C) 2022

I Am Enough

This feeling of inadequacy is clogging up fears In my throat I’m struggling to breathe in ENOUGH air for a day
I’m struggling to see the light my ART shines in dark tunnels
I’m struggling to see the FREEDOM bursting like light in many hearts

I stare at the stage and wish I were behind the pulpit
Spewing sleek words that must have been dry-cleaned for years
I yearn for the cameras to click on my face as I sashay even though I know my art isn’t a hundred percent

I forget I’m enough at where I am because I take my lessons
That I don’t have to prove a point, I only have to study and write my tests so every day, I can look at the score sheet, at the improving grades
And thump my chest, knowing, believing in the goodness of this PROCESS.

Everyday, I’m enough
I’m enough as who I am and who I’m evolving into

Ifiokabasi Okop
© 2020

Sensei

Your voice elder brother
Reminds me of life without borders.
You live a virtue more than a cafila
Of the nine fruit a part of the triune is, like aqua
Shadows shift spot when you beam your light.
Goodness you exude without a need to fight
This titanosaur, flesh that engulfed men, bond to obey
One filled with wiles; the same that appears as an apostle of the day
You conquered my nightmares, horrible illusions I traded by peace to
Long before I understood that you never wished to
Have half-baked human, harangued into hellscape.
You took away my bugaboo
And made me whole

Simeon Chidi
© 2019

CHRONICLES OF A DROWNING MIND

Dead zone
Broken soul
Scary shadows
Those are rhythms of a poor old kid
Whose ways never pleased anyone, not even herself.

No hope
Buried grace
Weak for the race
Those are top list words recorded in the word billboard of her mind
She used to be of the royal line
But now goodness turned to lime
She sees God’s intentions as the least
Her faith so rusty and loosen like an abandoned screw
There she becomes a beast that feast with the devil.

Records of heart failures
Impotent to believe the best inside
Drenched with the thoughts of discovery
Draining in the memory lane of no understanding
Tears from the sole of the heart dripping down like flood yet none sees these flood of questions buried in tears

Travelling alone in travail… I weep in smiles…
Because in my green days have I grown grey because am yet to discover the me in me

In silenced smiles I’m drown in fears because my mind has become aged in thoughts

Hold my weeping mind
Embrace my tears in warmth,
Caress me with words of rescue
Carry me in the wings of warmth understanding
For I drown in silence

Oh…save me from this destiny device
For I transit into the groove of eternity
My powerhouse drowns
I plead for restoration if that exist
I seek for redemption for this battle is beyond me

Nonye
The Alchemist
© 2019