Prints

We are not men who walk down the street with our pants reaching out for our legs
Neither are we those that make their mouth ovens where nothing is baked except their lungs, we are men who inspired the first breath of God
We are tongue-twisting thunder talking teachers
Read that again and see how we make mysteries a cup of tea
Have you seen us move our lips like choir directors to conduct the movement of souls in the world?
These are ways we make the world our brothers, no borders with our words
We are not always wielding what’s rightfully ours
But you can be more than sure what we’ve got is true power
We do not waste our time on spades and knife when we’ve got words lying right on top our hearts
Our battle cry is “Abba Father”, we were not thought to loose
We are on the attack, our victory already secured
The gates of Hades fall at our feet as we deliver those once lost
Ordinary meat doesn’t make up our muscle, ours are made of blood dripping from the cross
Cause we have learned to work out our salvation, by going as the spirit instructs
We love because we’ve been loved and taught to love
We tsunami because power birthed us and gave us authority

Felzpoecy
Ezeonyeka Godswill
© 2020

WILL YOU BE?


The trickle of salted water
Opened up the flood gates of its tap
The fiery gaze of hurt and pain
Like boiling blood
Will you be the hands to wipe off?

The bleeding of the shape I call love
The grief of the cut in two
The loss of the pieces fixed to it
Will you be the one to mend?

Like stones hurled at one
The weight you can’t bear
The pricks it leave behind
Of fear, of poor esteem
Will you soothe my ears?

Steps higher steps above
In doubt and fear
With skills but no grit
Will you be the one to urge on?

My love my perfect
Imperfectly perfect
Frail, grace and calm
Will you hold my hand?

When my eyes are covered with fear
And my hands quiver in despair
When my Feet drown in doubt
Will you be my Anchor

When the day wears a black gown
And the Sun refuses the smile
Hiding the face of the moon
Will you be the voice hope?

Oraegbu Philipa Ada
Olaoye Adeleye
© 2020

THIS IS LIFE

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life
This is life that you see one who gets along with your thoughts
This is life that you meet your necessary complement who aligns with God’s thought
This is life that you live abundantly
That there’s someone who resonates in the same frequency of your being
One who has the boldness to take you from what was once called harmony into a bigger family

This is life that life find one who sticks with you closer than a brother
Who fights side by side with you against your betrayals
This is life that you have one whose leading and guidance is of the Holy Spirit who completes your sentences
Whose night intercession wakes you up and challenges your day to make sense
This is life that when the night gets darker, your light shines brighter, and bigger, and better
And men will see your heavenly Father
And there’s more…

There’s more to life than meets the eyes
This is life who listens to you even when you are wrong
Who treats you right and decorates you as his bride
Who holds you even when you can’t hold on
Who lavishes his mercies upon you and gives blessings beyond you
And there’s more…

There is life who weeps with you
Guards and then carries you
Who smiles and watches the joy that lit up in your eyes
Who taunts your stalkers and troubles your mockers
Who see beyond your needs and strengthens your feeble knees
And there’s more…
That at the end, you’ll be holding hands with God’s precious gift as your Makers says to you,
“Well done!”
You lived a good life
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Azubike Hannah
© 2019

Balcony

A good journey is made up of few events,
but one important thing
Is a happy and relieved ending.

I have seen
The journeys the men of my country,
And seen that they have
only begun to stop fighting like animals.

Now we fight a different way.
But to fight like that is not expected of my journey.

Yet this balcony of exclusion
While keeping me
Safe from the journeys of other people,
keeps all the stories I would learn away from me.

Okay, I’m going inside

The Niel
© 2019

Evolve

Man.
Lord of the earth, unknowing.
Born Heroes; living victims.
Black Panthers scared shitless.
Superintendents gone puny.
Sad.

Man.
So primitive. So common. Like dirt.
As is the sunrise.
Aye, it doesn’t make him, nor the sunrise,
Any less a miracle; any less a beauty.
But then…

Man.
“Ye are Gods,” I heard Him say.
Creators, made He you.
But it’s sad.
You only live as pawns on a chessboard.
And you die like mere scum of the earth.
Who knew the hashtag was truth, after all.
Men are scum, indeed.

Man.
Oh, man.
Pity! PITY!
I mean, you share a last name with Deity!
With Yahweh Himself!
Oh, that you knew thyself!
And, that, to thy sweet self, you be true.

Man.
Do not your dreams whisper to you
The destiny of your race?
Do not your superheroes, your folklores, your movies
Point towards mastery?
And power?
And love?

Man.
Does not your genius, your spirit
Nudge you ever so silently
To rule from the top of the rainbow?
To conquer the sky you’ve agreed is your limit?

Who has deceived you?
Oh, man!
“Evolve, man!
Evolve!”
Eternity screams.
Immortality beckons.

But no. You’ll read this poem, this call,
And just move on.
Sadly.
Oh!
Man!

Nonso John
© 2019

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

ETERNAL LIFE

it was so much joy
That day I joined the life
In the race of men
I gave my first smile, looking into her face who gave me life
While mouth stocked to her chest gulping out desperately a white river
A white river that would make me strong and grow

Day by day I got to know how life is
The sweetness of it and the sour it gives
How good life could be and how evil could penetrate
I only know the first life given from a woman
But as time grows
I begin to see despite life was given life itself could be taken too

I see the young and old been taken
Taken not from the woman who gave it
But taken from another life named death
Death I was told it’s also a life
Another life not to live walking
A life laying silently below the ground
Soundless, only the cracking walking sounds of termites feasting on every part beneath the ground

One morning ,I walked down with mama to a place
Under a shield filled with different faces
Looking lost but wanting more
There , I got to know of another life
Far better than the life from a woman and the life beneath the ground

I heard of the third life
A life flowing with milk and honey
A life of peace without stress
A life which know no sickness nor sorrow
A life forever more with no endings reigning with kings and Angels
A life bought by a boy called Beloveth Son
Who give to it freely with His blood
Blood bonding is as one
That whoever believeth in Him should not perish
But have Eternal life

Deeyoke
©2019

Arise and Fall

Standing alone beside the eastern sea
My soul is shocked, so surprised
How the world can truly be

Children arises like the Biafra’s sun
Learning how to pray, to love and live
Hustling and dreaming of a glorious day
But soldiers and men alike are nothing

But blood and dust
And fate wins the final say
So blessed and cursed am I today
To live, to see the prophecy
of the scripture come true

“Man is nothing, but a grass
And all his dreams a rosy flower
The grass grows and withers
And the rosy flower quickly fades”

Standing solo beside the eastern sea
I observe like the Biafra’s sun
How our children both slave and free
Arise and fall

Ugwu David. C
© 2019