Here and Now
Here and now,
I stand tall with my head high
I’m no longer a slave to fear
I am a child of God
Here and now, I live in freedom for I no longer hide behind a mask
Grace has exposed my flaws and inadequacies
But He has given me a face to shine
Here and now, I have chosen grace over everything else
And the Holy Spirit empowers me
To live daily, my best life.
Ijeoma Obi
© 2020
I do NOT fear the stars
I fear the sky’s span, its depth and breath, its embrace that swallows everything my size and yours and makes them disappear into insignificance.
Do you have the slightest idea what the sky does to you, mortal man?
That scape up there, it makes you marvel. It lifts a smile unto your face, drives awe into your heart. Your feelings twinkle with the stars. You feel fly. Fly like a firefly, a little dot of light persevering in a dark world. You feel like a peacock, strutting its gaily colored stuff. Just before it gets slaughtered.
The sky’s beauty is a stolen garb woven from a trillion diamonds, the stars that hide the cold, dark, unfeeling universe beneath its ‘skin’. The rule of that universe is selfishness, its path is self-preservation, its goal is self-elevation. And no mortal has ever won against its brutish march.
Neither will you.
Neither will the stars.
Like you, millions have tried to soar past the skies. They pierced it with towers, crossed it with rockets, coursed about it with satellites.
Like you, trillions have burned bright, over eons unfathomable. They gave light and life to worlds innumerable. They were the suns of their age, the stars that stunned our forebears.
Today, they are gone. All of them. All shredded trillion bits, devoured by the same universe. And the sky, this pretty mask of a cold dark monster, keeps its sunlight front, its fraudulent smile.
And the world keeps spinning.
I do not fear the stars. I fear the wretchedness they hide.
Ikenna Nwachukwu Alexander
© 2019
I want to be free to live,
A life free from difficulty,
A life with no tragedy
I want to be free to walk,
walk and never be stopped
Free to walk away from that sin that enslaved me,
Free to confront the devil that estranged me
I want to be free to speak,
Oh let my tongue leak, the truth.
I want to be free to spill out words that heal,
Words that plant and uproot futile roots
I want to be free to see,
See beyond diverse challenges,
See an adventure in the midst of peril
I want to be free to smile,
A smile that brightens and brings joy to a troubled mind and uplifts the weary heart
I want to be free to dream,
Dreams that are not assaulted by ferocious nightmares,
Dreams that give the assurance of a bright future
I want to be free to give,
Give without demanding to receive
Free to give myself up, just as Christ did for us
I want to be free to worship,
Acknowledging him who has dominion and lordship
I want to be free to love,
Unconditionally, exclusively and indefinitely
I want to be free to be the creators poet,
Free to get my papers wet,
With blue blood as they surge freely through my pen
I want to be free to write my piece,
Without chaos afflicting my peace
I want to be free to be the “me” that I’m supposed to be,
Not regarding people’s thoughts and opinions of me
I want to be free from pressures,
Free from peer pressures that accelerates my blood pressure
Free from living to measure up and forgetting his “treasure up”
I want to be free from the shadows of my past,
Free to take off this obfuscating mask
I know I committed crimes and crossed lines but I want to be free to bask in his ever redeeming light,
Free to actualize that in Christ, I am worth a Jew’s eye
I want to be free
According to God’s will
Flourishing like the flowers
Gushing with full strength like the waters
And as a tree planted near the rivers whose root spreads across like the garment of a diva
I want to be free expanding in knowledge
thrilling in the realm of possibilities
healing the broken souls with those words gifted from above
So, I desire to be free
Free from the seal of fear and jest
Free from imperfections and wrong decisions
Free the rain of confusion that overwhelms the kingdom on the inside,
Free from the floods of lust that empties grace
And takes away God’s face
I need to be free!
clothed with righteousness on the race
Nurtured on the way
Living to become my very best
Princess
The Alchemist
© 2019.
Christ a poet 