Cursive, no thieves, just leaves, viva la valedictorian
Verily voting for venom,
Victims inclusive of some who had heard of him
Ofcourse
Vocal for Jesus like voting or venting
The vast invitations have vogued him
Visions of Vashti vroom through my vexing
But all I visit is the invincible
Vote it over all the visible
Vexing never vindicated alone
Eyes stay above from thought to tone
Violent verbal confession
No thieving touches the one will say
“I am more than Victorious”
Niel Quchi
© 2023
Slowly, just like a breaking dawn
I move in the direction of my dreams
These mountains leave me only a frown
Give us your eyes, always their scream
I have no doubt failures will come
For such are unwanted friends of every worthy cause
All must be smooth- an expectation of some
Unrealistic it is, of course
So I welcome and endure the pain
Decorating my pathway of life
For I know no pain, no gain
My best friend hope I must keep alive
Whether I fail or not is not the matter
Losing my focus is what I must not allow
So preserve your vision, my sister and brother
For in time, it will make you glow
AJEGBOMOGUN OLUFUNKE
© 2022
I like people and how they change, It reminds me of home. Of how one person won’t make it to Christmas next year, and forever. How this might be the last time I’ll tell aunty Chinenye that she’s my favorite. That her hair is beautiful and her smile is radiant. That being the only person in the family with dimples must mean that she was special. That I’ll come for holidays when she got married. That I love her. Before I run away with the plate of corn and _úbé_ she roasted for me to show my mummy.
New people remind me of old people. Of the promises of forever that lasted till worth became what my worth was never. “See finish” is myopic. It assumes that who I met today is better than someone I’ve known for many years. Forgive me for being old fashioned but I believe that the years matter. If our bubble lasts a year, then we have beaten time and seasons that I’ll cherish again and again. Because while people change, you’ve changed and I’ve changed, but somehow we haven’t changed enough to no longer feel the other is less their worth. I have a habit of remembrance. Of beginnings.
I like taking strolls. A slow walk down memory lanes. I like seeing how first hello and hi morphed into not being able to do without. I like change. It has never scared me. That’s why I am never afraid of death. How people leave without a word’s notice. How they change. From being there to being mute. How someone who would kill if you shed a tear will lie there and sleep through your million wails. Tears changes people. Maybe the saline fluid washes a part of ourselves with it when it falls. When we clean it, we don’t just clean it. We erase something too. A trust, a love, a care, a joy, a part of us.
People change but I don’t blame them. I’ve heard people say the stories of their journeys. It’s why I want to make movies. So many untold stories. We judge too hastily for people with the ability to cry so much. And we hold grudges for people that fall short so much. I never got to visit aunty Chinenye because she never got married. Mummy will never see my wife, daddy too, with his funny mustache and remarks. Aunty Faustina will not make good on her threat to tell the woman that I’m stubborn on my wedding day. They all changed. Just like people do. They fell like flowers plucked from life’s petal, to wither on dusty earth. So go ahead dear, change all you want, I’m used to it.
Uc Truth
(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.
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
Men search all their lives for what has been right in front of them.
Trashing gold and chasing Shadows
Could it be the difference in font sizes making their mind choose superiority over relevance?
How shallow can man’s mind be???
A desperate quest for a test not given detesting all it has been equipped with.
Ohhh……comparison, man’s self constructed blind fold kidnaps him to a dump where pumps no longer make sense until it releases a shrieking sound like that of Ngozi.
Forgetting Zee sounds in no way like Y neither does it come before it but leaves words incomplete with it’s absence.
My heart can’t cry more than the king of Glory’s as he hands another years waited mantle to handle.
If you don’t handle that mic it will be given to another.
If you don’t start speaking now another is right behind you to take over
If you don’t start and see less of how imperfect you may sound and focus on strength from Calvary nothing will vary when another takes your place.
Start!!!
Ebube
© 2021
The mind, like the ground, would grow anything planted therein.
Phillipa Oraegbu
Can I trust you?
Trust you enough to behold my nakedness,
To come before you bare-
With engraved scars and a broken soul,
Can I trust you will hold my brokenness,
And make a sculpture out of me,
Can I trust you?
Trust you enough to let go,
And drown me into your vessel,
Guiding me through the waves life throws at me,
Can I trust?
Enough to abandon all I have built,
Pillars of sweat and blood,
And follow you to the promised land,
Though alien to my eyes but familiar to my heart,
I hear how it calls out to my spirit,
And sings sweet melodies of what my future would be like!
This rhythm soothes my soul,
But fear has gripped me by my spine
And has crippled my faith and numbed my feet
So I ask, Dear Lord,
If I give you my hands to hold,
Can I trust you?
That you will never let go
Until these songs of the future
Become a reality I dance to!
Can I trust you?
Adeleye Olaoye
©2021
Christ a poet 