Tag: Kept

The Bleeding Heart

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The blood she shed was all her own.
She’d found no way to staunch the flow
For twelve long years.
The cost to her in doctors’ care
Was nothing to her shame and her enormous fears.
Unclean and thus untouchable
She knew she’d live and die alone in blood and tears.

The world had turned its back on her
And all she saw and all she touched was tinged with red.
Denied the right to worship God,
Denied the Temple courts by law, her soul was dead.
Denied all comfort, love of friends
And touch of man, she kept alone her blood-stained bed.

Her last hope lay in this new man,
But with her touch she’d make him, too, unclean, outcast.
And should she even hope for help?
Of all the people God might heal she was the last.
For it was God who sent the curse,
The blood and shame, the loneliness, through Laws He passed.

In spite of all these doubts and fears,
Mistrust of God, she took her chance – a touch unseen.
Then, Jesus, the untainted, changed the Law to Love.
Her world became new, fresh and green.

The blood He shed was all his own,
And flowing down it covered her and washed her clean.

Pamela Urfer
© 2021

LOT’S BROTHER-IN-LAW

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Take me back to Gwags;
Let me remake the lags and crags that tripped me forward into UNN.
I thought myself a goner, no Arsenal, and yet I won the war with a few good men.

Barely two years into
UNN my issues
Pointed me to people
Who would grow me into
Feet that would fill great shoes
Burst ma brain, no pimples
I ran into you people
Now I’m pretty grateful

So if you take me back to Gwags
I won’t need the swag
That once was a must-have
No, right now, I have Christ
That sure peace I roll on
That faith is my profession

Tertiary choices once lay ahead of me
A barrier between
the now then and this
I chose first indeed
But God will have his

Abrahaming through lands,
I was my own Isaac – the Son was in the Man

God asked for my sacrifice
I kept dodging all his eyes
I thought that I was wise
Arguing through all his whys

But let me remake
The crags and lags that made
me trip into UNN
Let’s see what happened then…

The Niel Quchi
© 2020

Mum’s The Word

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As I looked up at the assailant
Tears freely flowing like water
With each thrust, he took a bit of my soul.
Something broke, shattered in me
Then he said, “Mum’s the word”

Looked at them, the ones who loved me,
I want to tell them everything I felt
But imagining the disappointment and shame I would bring,
I told myself, “Mum’s the word”

I looked down, this time I’m on top
My eyes dim, my soul dark
I did to another what was done to me
And I said, “Mum’s the word”

I looked down at the weapon
That would keep me forever mum
I sighed and wished
Wished I hadn’t kept mum…

Emenike Chinwendu Victoria
© 2020

Crippled Mind

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A farmer caught a pigeon
Inside a cage, he nurtured it
Now, the farmer to the bird, was mean
He deprived it of life’s necessities.

The bird was kept in the house
Denied access to sunlight,
It grew up believing in the non-existence of light
After all, it never saw the outside world.

Years later the farmer died
And the farmer’s son, aloud said:
“I have no need for this bird
It is old and as good as dead”

Out he took the cage,
Its door he opened expecting flapping wings,
The bird which should have flown in rage
Stood there, paralysed with astonishment.

The farmer took the bird out of the cage
And carefully set it on its feet
The bird with wings flew not
Its mind was already crippled.

Many of us are like this proverbial bird
JESUS CHRIST has set us free
But still, we hold tight to the past
Refusing to let go of a slave’s mentality

We all have been redeemed
Let’s free ourselves from an old slavery
Let’s soar to higher heights
And not be crippled by our pasts.

Ajegbomogun Olufunke
© 2020

I Can’t Breathe

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So, you give yourself a treat
Basking in the Euphoria
Of Pizza, ice cream and Shawarma
With your dry throat
Enjoying the constant flow
Of a very chill Pepsi
As soon as they announce
One day fasting and prayer
…..I can’t breathe

All night Long
You had a one night stand
Twerking, rolling and standing
On a long thing
But when it was time
To spend one night
With the King of kings
The Creator of all long
And short things
….I can’t breathe

During the Pandemic
You were the Minister of information
The broadcaster of all Confirmed
And Death cases
Now that God has kept you alive
To broadcast His Word
And Minister to his children
….I can’t Breathe

Yes!
You can’t breathe in
The polluted air of Immorality
And exhale the Purity of Divinity
You’ve given your body
All the attention
And sentenced your spirit
To life in detention
No matter the balanced diet you eat
Your Life is not balanced
If your spirit man is not gallant

Beyond the seen
There’s a life behind the scene
Beyond the full feeling
There’s an in-filling
Where drunkenness is normal
And Doggedness is not carnal
Here, there are no neutral grounds
If your feet are not standing on a secret
They will smoke you out like cigarettes
Living too casual
Makes you a casualty
Your Spirit Life Matters

Uwe Etim
© 2020

The Upgrade

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I love you Lord;
For your voice means the world to me;
Say it, I’ll do it,
I needn’t understand
For you have made your dwelling with me.

O Lord you will lead me through the valleys,
Of the shadows of the death of me,
You O Lord puts the word in season in my mouth;
You have made my tongue the pen of a ready writer,
For you have chosen me for deeds noble.

I will never really understand your love,
How you choose to love an adulterer,
Or make prayers in folded palms,
For the ones whom a hole,
They drilled into your palms,
Or choose to let a kiss betray you,
And yet still gave your life,
As a sacrifice! All for what?
To prove your love for me,
Yes, I have denied you more than three times,
Yet, you choose to love me,
I guess my eyes will always see love differently,
Love that crossed my I’s,
Love on the crossed-eye
love of God, for I!

How do I tell this story,
A tale as old as two cities,
Before time could even speak,
My brain never seems to figure out the math,
Of how you could love scandalously,
How a Prince gave up everything,
To love a low-life like me!
My scars didn’t scare Him,
Rather He kissed them!
Now I see nothing but love!

And when I kept at you,
You looked at me so tender
You said, “spread your mercy abroad,
To the good and to the ungrateful,
You’re like me that way,
What I do for my living,
This is the upgrade you need”.

Olaoye Adeleye,
Favour Omeje,
©2020

The Pause

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I have heard great people speak
Thank God someone kept a record of their speeches
I have listened to how their words string
And they never miss to take a pause and think

It is not a lack of words I hear
For their capacity have never been one to yield
Yet with the abundance of words to wield
They take a pause to care for what they speak

The way they hide years between their words
Tells me there is no rush to prove my worth
Tis better to have never uttered a word
If you would regret it because you didn’t take a pause

Ezeonyeka Godswill
© 2020

A chip of ice- for mum

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Your teardrops would battle fiercely
From the corners of your eyes
They would force their way through
The rigid, unyielding valley of your eyelids
And when they fell
They would stab your cheeks, twist your nose
And sting the recesses of your jaw

Yet when they fell,
They were like the sudden rain that mocked the Sahara
Like the mango tree growing in the Arctic
They were a wonder, and so were you.
For you loved me
Like icy cold, angry waters hammering on rocks
Falling

From unbelievable heights, through the distance between us
Screaming, raging and filled with the frustration
That your decades had fed you
As you crisscrossed naked open seas, flogged by the sun
And through lush green forests
With dwindling mud tracks and filthy streams
Falling

Defying boulders and meanders that had beaten you into thin ice
And kept you on your tiptoes with your back bent
Trying to meet my needs
Through cold, dark nights when you slept
With the biting in your belly
With the uncertainty of worry
Yet you flowed, silent and rapid
Falling,

Through the secrets you swallowed as you went by
And the hurts which never made you cry
And the sorrows you fought to bring forth life
With a charming smile on your face.
You shamed the hardness
That shaped your life
And you crashed against my rocky heart
With the weight of ages of ice
You flogged me, you tore me, you tested me
In my blindness, you were my foe
But I have received the warmth sparked
By the slap of your coldness
And I have melted in love
Your love is hidden in my heart of ice

Ndubuisi Chioma J
© 2019