The past got nothing
On you,
Yesterday is gone
Today you’re healed,
Safe and secure.
Ebubechi
©2024
The past got nothing
On you,
Yesterday is gone
Today you’re healed,
Safe and secure.
Ebubechi
©2024
The garden reminds me of him
Bowed down, he bore weights too heavy before they ever landed. My Lord knew the battle was fierce to fight and he would not let me suffer. No, he would do the fighting. If this price had to be paid, then he would do the paying.
The garden reminds me of him
The Lord of glory had need for help. Every minute brought him closer and every gesture was a prayer. He that was everyone’s everything had no one’s nothing to journey with him. Alone he must go. A lone seed to be sown.
The garden reminds me of him
Before the curtain fell on sin’s final payment. Before ever a drop of blood hit the floor. Before stripes parted his skin and men killed the one that healed them. The garden bore witness to my Lord’s humanity. The garden bore witness to this man’s divinity.
The garden reminds me of him
Ezeonyeka Godswill
(C) 2022
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 a freestyle session. Each freestyle session is given a topic for the poems to address.
Today, we see the last of the February 25th 2022 poems. Topic was “Regeneration”.
Yesterday, we went through the ladies who all posted inside the 11th hour. So today we begin at 12:10 PM, with the CaP goddess, Chika St. Davnique:
I feel pain every time I think of my sister.
And I’m not thinking about myself when I think of her.
I’m thinking of all the ways in which she was alive.
I’m reliving the moments in which her smile lived.
And the pain I feel, it’s not selfish.
So no.
Adjust your lenses
And somewhere around this period, she got into a sensitive discussion with MeerahZoe. Now because some parts of the discussion was in voicenotes, I will give you a summary of the most important point made during the argument. The rest is honey and milk for CaP members. To join up, GoTo the “Join Us” tab
They were talking about different people’s reactions to loss. Chika said: As Christian writers, w hen we write, we owe it to the world and our audience to say what is true, and not just what we feel at the moment. Infact, whenever we want to be so subjective, we should state that this is us and just our perspective. Making absolute statements based on subjectivity has to stop.
At 12:36 PM, Chika St. Davnique made some some more poetry:
‘Please hold on while your transaction is processing…’
I’m staring lost in thought.
My mind, a multiverse of directions my thoughts wish to take.
Another line from a poem my father taught me floats into my brain…
‘We have come to the crossroad, and I either leave or come with you’
So I go with it.
The thought that we are always in the midst of a transaction. Always coming and going from an exchange. Always living or dying, giving or leaving.
The machine is still grinding, my body is still standing.
I wonder, does the man behind me know I’m lost.
Or is he lost in the endless start of things?
Is he coming and going from worries?
Is he in a loop of misdirection? And does he know the dimensions of life’s transactions?
Does he know what matters? Is he exchanging his time here for true treasures?
Or has he bought into the lie that he owns real estate in Time’s garden park?
‘Thank you for banking with us’
My fingers move of their accord. Cash in hand, I hold the physical equivalent of my time. I stroll on still lost… in thought trains.
Like, are we living or dying slowly?
And what is breathing if life is lived in beautiful moments?
Why does it come in cycles of the same patterns?
Are we living lives once lived?
…car honk and I remember to find myself.
Here.
On the road home.
Kinda like life, right?
And then, at 12:38 PM, catch a glimpse of what MeerahZoe was saying during the conversation:
This in itself is not a bad thing.
I’m a mental health advocate, and I know that self care is not selfish.
I also understand the human impulse to defend what we feel or are experiencing.
I was actually talking about the often masochistic need we have to hold on to pain even when we know it is crippling.
I have to say, I understood both their stances…but I just wrote on at 1:53 PM, probably with the mind to de-escalate the matter:
Black gems;
– made of what I used to call trash
– make me valuate my answers
– prayers sneaking outta coffins
– studded both my belt and cufflinks
What else?
I didn’t heal when you hugged me
I felt hate from my sulking
But I knew that was not important
I’m glad you haven’t kicked the bucket
Glad you haven’t kicked the bucket
Big wolves leaving bite marks
Farm hands turning lone sharks
My heart used to have cracks
Now it’s powdered like its custard
So I give it up to Father
Me I know he’ll take me farther
Speaking healing past the storm’s parts
Wash my eyes with water God spat
After a bit of silence, probably because I write mouth-shutting stuff, at 3:45 PM, Hanna Azubuike:
Please stop burning my eyes with how one should mourn a loss. You have healed, you have forgotten the pain you went through. Help with the Word if you must say something. Let her fully heal before you share how you mourned yours. You will never understand the closeness either. Let the eyes be dried before you point the picture and the different colors.
And at 5:49 PM, Imani Dokubo finesse with a few words from her beautiful:
Things die quickly when plucked from their source.
Root, the plants source.
God, the believers source.
Regeneration never happens without a source.
At 6:44 PM, the final freestyle of the day was delivered by Cap founder, Ezeonyeka Godswill, an enigmatic leader whose words always clear the air:
Writing is vulnerable. To war with the worlds in your mind so that you can birth words is sacrifice. We bear in our hands bleeding mysteries as we concise conscious constellations into careful captions. We know not all is said but what must have been said. The world wonders at writers not because it cannot produce as they do but because writers learn through the pain of introspection how to transport seedlings of thought across mind so that on the winds of communication the death of a world can find regeneration through the planting of these words.
Enough said; REGENARATE NOW, In the name of Jesus!!
Authors:
Chika St. Davnique
MeerahZoe
The Niel Quchi
Hanna Azubuike
Imani Dokubo
Ezeonyeka Godswill
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 a freestyle session. Each freestyle session is given a topic for the poems to address.
On this particular day, April 9th 2021, freestyles started at 4:00 PM, under the topic “Holy”. I think it’s important to note that the writers and Editors of CAP are mostly working class people. Some of us attended the same university and know each other’s styles and historical progressions. And now we have each grown to take up deeper levels of our careers and deeper bonds with each other’s writing.
I kicked off the session at 4pm with this:
Busy Friday, up for air like I was diving
Made in Heaven and I am chosen like Joe Biden
God
Taught my hands to war and gave me tools for thriving
That’s how God do, I cannot be shy too
Yes he said he would do it
And I’m trusting him through it
All I needed was light, when I saw it I knew it
Old and dead was I, but His Word is renewing
He gave me Life after Earth, and the power for during
Set apart now, yes, you can call me Holy
Kingdom focused like a soldier when I tell his story
P
I’m past tense, and now I’m comfy with evangelism
And I don’t wait for Easter to tell the world Christ is reason
Okay, so there are times and seasons that Sitz im Leben these sessions. For example, this set is from the Easter period of 2021. A lot of times, some of us would simply draw lyrics from the context, and transpose that with the topic at hand. But some us, like me, would ignore the topic mostly or adhere entirely to it. This brings us to the next freestyle.
Nonso John, in my opinion, can’t be said to really be freestyling. He’s too practiced for that. He would write, edit, restructure, all that. At the end, his freestyles would be…
Just check this out; coming in at 6 minutes after 5pm, Nonso John :
I’m human.
Trust me, I am.
I wear my pants one leg at a time.
And, believe it or not.
I cry. I fall. Yes, I even fart.
Ew.
Sometimes I feel worthless.
Like collateral damage. Expendable.
But, come on. All said and done.
We all know an Old Shot’s a Nigger.
Once every day; twice on Sundays.
Barbarians and Predators
See them threaten to Terminate us.
But as imperfect as we are,
Our God don’t use no erasers.
Perfection is not me.
I’ve never claimed it.
But, He who called me?
Come on. Dude’s on Fleek.
Faithful. Holy.
For me, the level of perfection, is a mixture of annoying and intimidating. But that’s our Nonso John. And he was probably trying to stay simple the whole time. Either way, I, The Niel Quchi, continued the spree at 8:01pm:
I’ve
Long time been a faith fool
Grateful being saved, Dude
Living dead like Voodoo
But I’m just a branch he bears fruit through
And I fall sometimes just like the price of things
When i don’t recall the price of him
But he’s faithful as he’s always been
But he’s faithful as he’s always been
Amen. Very brief and to the point; but then, I wouldn’t say that this followed the topic. Xhika came up next… I forgot that this is not WhatsApp. So, in Christapoet, there is a lady known as Chika St. Davnique. I have to restrain myself from telling you her nickname within CaP. I spell her name with an ‘X’ where the ‘C’ is. Here is St. Davnique at 8:48pm:
I’ve not known many things
The result being many thorns
Many torns
Many turns
The world isn’t ideal you see,
We sea-saw every now,
Again,
Between here and hiding
Between there and finding.
And aren’t we all fake fools?
Confessing ideals but rooted in our reels
Our reals
Our ins
Our inch shallow depths
Aren’t we?
Hoping to high heavens that a faith full God stays real.
Stays reeled in
Riveted on showing us what’s real in us.
Even if we never find real in us.
I’ve not known many things,
But I’ve known Him to be true.
To be ALL, absent none,
Faithful and holy.
Yeah, a testimony of her experience of God’s holiness. Though I feel it is kind of normal to attribute holiness to God, in comparison to poetizing the concept in and of itself. But truly, what better description of Holiness is there than Yahweh himself. I came through again at a minute after 9pm. I remember I was walking to Mindsmith’s house as I wrote this…Yeah, I like to walk and write:
I passed by a guard sitting unguarded;
Who starts life without the One whence life started?
Giving birth in a trance don’t make you transparent
Saying “Apparently” won’t make you a parent
But I think the ball is passed
Textbook poetry is fast
Four lines the structure
If it was on Twitter, who’d follow Instructions
And next was the very beautiful Zoe Ziva. I think Zoe should be at least a year old in CaP by the time of this article. Here she goes, on “Holy”, nine minutes later, at 9:10pm:
First created as dust, with the gene of him who failed, I looked at myself as worthless and the least of righteous like, even if I tried my best to be the “most righteous” it was like a filthy rag?
I gave up!
But before I was through, He tapped me and said He’ll rather be the One to give up His life just so I can be recreated no longer by dust but by Breath(The Spirit)
And He did.
On the cross He whispered “It is Finished”
So there! I was created a new being and Gene, no longer traced to dust but now to The One who recreated me.
So when the devil tried to deceive me telling me I’m not worth it and good enough,
He tapped me to remind me; and all I could hear was:
Faithful, Holy.
I like that her poem spurt was inherently evangelische. I was writing all the whole, in the background, still walking. So at 9:26pm, I wrote:
Up the hill to Smith’s I walk
NEPA’s taken light ofcourse
But i won’t call them unfaithful
Because they get no faith from us
I have found I have tailor my ways
So that nothing takes the time I need for giving him praise
Can you just imagine who was giving us chase
He whose words freestyled ants and milky ways
Would you look at that?! Beautiful right? And at 9:50pm, Eremi struck the last chord of the day:
Yesterday was quite cloudy
It felt like the travelling rain
Decided to stop at my terrain to greet
But it didn’t
Flashes of lightning like swords fight pushed though the thick black clouds
It was an intentional scare I thought
And my thoughts slept with me
Now I’m thinking about it
How is a God whose voice is louder than the thunder speak so softly
That you could hear distinctly in stillness?
I remembered a time
I also wondered what lights really is
You know
Stepping into that flash of light as in the lightning
Light in light?
No shadow of turning?
How is that even possible?
How will light so fill a place
That it will cast no shadow
Hold it! What could Holy mean?
All white, flurry, smells like sweets?
Holy!
Set apart!
Yes, I later learnt what it meant
Separated for the divine
Who is actually The Vine
The one from whom we got our alias – the Branches
I was told that the Vine isn’t just a fruit tree
That it’s a tree that creeps
Better put infiltrate
It takes over
Just give it time
It’s so beautiful that after it’s done with the host
All you can see is vine
Branches faithful to the course
Actually bring forth the fruits
Occupy till I come
For you are a chosen generation
A holy priesthood
They are the ones
That become the Light in the light
The ones that there is also found no shadow of turning
God is light, in Him there’s no darkness
You are of God Little Children
The glory of the vine had made us one
As they are one
Abiding in Him as He is in the Father
How did I start this gist?
I hope it still rains today
Who knows it could make me think of another gist tomorrow.
And that concluded a beautiful session of really nice pieces. What do you think of each poem?
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:
Zoe Ziva
Chika St. Davnique
Eremi
Nonso John
Neil Quchi
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 the a freestyle session. Each freestyle session is given a topic for the poems to address.
Unfortunately, I didn’t save this session’s topic, so I would love it if you leave a comment telling us what you think this season should be named. The first piece came at 10;22am, from the one and only Eremi:
To the one
Who was still forgiving sins
While hooked on the cross
By the nails of those whose eyes were veiled
Too blinded by their deeds
They could not see the grief
For the fulfillment of what’s to be
He said nothing against them
And for their salvation
He pleaded
‘Father Forgive them
They do not know what they do’~
Love’s perfect excuse
To the one whose death
Not only caused an earthquake
But struck death with a deathblow
Cracking the graves open
So life floods the veins of the dead
And breath, their nostrils
If only death knew
There’d be a prison break
He’d have opposed the crucifixion
But how would they know
They were blinded by their deeds
They could not see the grief
To the one whom hell couldn’t hold
Because he was too hot for the heat
Too strong to be pull down
For 3 days Hell saw Hell in Hell
Its principals displayed in shame
The Lord of the Worlds
Went to the lows with His judgement
To take back
What man lost
And to give ’em a taste
Of what His offsprings will do
To the resurrected one
who has reconciled humanity and divinity
Our eternal link to eternity
And our surety for divine royalty
Our High Priest
The one
Whose coming brought hope
Whose death brought redemption
Whose resurrection brought victory
Whose ascension brought the Holy Ghost
And when He comes again
It will be to take His own
To our resurrected King and Priest
The effulgence of God the Father
One with the Holy Spirit
To Jesus our Lord
Be the glory forever. Amen
That was a long poem. It feels like when you go to visit a rich or older person and You are planning to stay for a little while but the truth is that they determine how long you will actually stay. So you sit and enjoy their luxurious habitat. The piece also felt like a prayer. Next up, at 11:56am, Godswill must have lifted his head and saw the time and decided to jump in:
It is weird that bad can really mean good in this world
But we are shocked when power adorns humble clothes
In a generation hell bent on self gratification
It comes as heresy to think that self sacrificing is key to satisfaction
Enter Easter
The makers melodramatic response to man’s malady
Helpless, lifeless body of a condemned man on a cross
The picture of a sovereign God-king winning wars unknown
Victory did not look like they expected but he was never working with their standards
And that is Godswill for you. He likes to be thoughtful. He is Christapoet’s founder and a great friend of mine. Speaking of me, I wrote next, mixing English with a bit of pidgin English. “nielquchi” at 12:09:
Been a while since I freestyle wrote
Inspiration never left me though
People always want a new dish
Yet their hunger never changes
Been at home trying to plan ahead
I speak life in my charger head
And my plugs let me owe or buy ahead
I think Grace has gotten to my head
And Shalom told me ’bout a waist problem
I showed her power wey dey waste problem
Issues up, I speak a way through them
Blessings rush ya, no be Putin
Ok, so I can be very… starry eyed, when I write. I just let go and let the words flow, even when I am given a topic. But no need to be defensive. Next up at 12:44pm, was Godswill again. This time, he wrote using my style. That conversational tone…check it out:
Daniel made me think of authority
Told my mind there is a place to reach with my dexterity
Yet I am reminded that freestyles are fun when I read Daniel’s piece
Here is to the skilled master hand
We write to preach, inform and understand
That’s like a swordsman is with his blade
We freely wield words with authority no one gave
So much fun!! And that’s that freestyle spirit. When you are so practiced with a skill that you can play with it. Well, I didn’t see his spurt till much later in the day. And when I did, I wondered why no one had replied. I wrote next, at 4:21pm:
Calm down
We are soldiers. Soldiers, calm yourselves and read the battle.
The world is so designed to take your guns and kill your mettle
To freeze your fingers, make you deaf to simple calls of duty
And I’m no captain but I took the oath and know the beauty
What’s a devil to a son,
Or an ailment to a shot of Holy Ghost power screaming “You are Healed”? Oh Lord!
What’s a heart before the Word, or snakes and scorpions creepy-crawlies sneaking through my affairs? Oh Lord!
Calm down
We are monsters; Morning Stars risen from a night of lifetimes…
The times and trends may shuffle but My King never lies.
Yes I bathe in glory and I count my points in won souls
When they saw my dreads in heaven, Jesus said, “I told you!”
What’s power to the Abba, or tycoon to a typhoon?
Jonah told me when you’re drowning, even fish are friends too
What’s depression or despair to the Spirit-led
We are pencils in his hand, mine is spirit lead
I almost want to take screenshots of the group’s reactions to some of these pieces, but I will leave it to you to show us how pleased you are. Kindly leave us a comment and like and share also, so that your people can be blessed in enjoying Christapoet freestyles.
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:
Eremi
Ezeonyeka Godswill
Neil Quchi
What’s in your hand?
Sand
I had the first throw
He fought well but had to let go
He’s in a better place but how do we know?
What’s in your Hand?
Needle!!
Fluid soldiers running to my rescue
Mounting pillars to save my temple
It’s wide enough for prayers to pass through
What’s in your Hand?
My Head!!
It’s kicking like I’m pregnant again.
It’ll fall off if I leave it to stay.
This headache don’t respect prayers again.
What’s in your hand
Testimony.
I’m Fine. Healed. Healthy.
Uche Faithful
©2021
Hey You!
When Jesus said that He came to save the world, He meant You!
Because You against the world is You against a brick wall. It’s a hard hit with a concussion of disorders.
You question His love for You when you measure it against the evil in the world.
When Jesus thinks the world, He thinks You!
Wholeness, life in abundance, health, prosperity, peace and joy, He thinks for You.
You may insist; “I don’t need saving, maybe He should go ahead and save the rest of the world instead”. But how can He save the world if He doesn’t save You?
You are His world!
You are the world!
The world doesn’t exist outside You.
Your sadness it displays
Your ignorance it conveys
Your pain it bears
The world exists because You do
In your wholeness, it is made whole
In your sanity, it is made sane
In your health, it is healed
In your joy, it overflows.
To reject Jesus’ help is to watch your World crash and burn.
You are His world!
You are the world!
Ijeoma Obi
© 2020
Once again , here I stand
Covering my face with a face pad
The world shouldn’t see these scars,
It’s petrifying to behold,
It reveals a story untold,
Lost hope, lost happiness and dreams torn apart.
Once again, here I stand
With my saviour hand in hand,
Saved, healed and restored.
Once battered but now full of joy
Forgetting the past story because the son has given a glory that lasts.
Princess Pirinye
© 2020