Monopoly Of Power

After my long journey
into the league of darkness.
After my painful crossing
the bridge of conformism.

Here, I swim again.
Swimming in the pool of eternal truth
Rebaptizing my sense
in the pool of light .

Everyone has inherent right
To be as their wish to be.
As long as they affirm this power in others.
As long as they remain in this boundary.

I am holy in my own terms
You can be holy as you choose .
I am a king in my own way
You can own the world in your own terms.

There is no monopoly
There is no monopoly of life,
There is no monopoly of knowledge
There is no monopoly of love

There can be no monopoly of power
There can be no monopoly of creativity
There can be no monopoly success
There is no monopoly of God .

Ugwu David C.
©2023

Man With The Mic

I fear for the man with the microphone
He must speak that which was spoken to him
But does he listen only to speak to the crowd
Can he listen enough to listen while he speaks

I wonder at the woman with the microphone
Laid out in beautiful worship before her Lord
Does her feet still know the grounds of this world
Will this dance of transcendence translate or transform

I fear and I wonder at the man I could be
Microphone in hand, driven by more than I can transmit
I pray that my eyes and heart never know another Lord
That I never be left on my own with a microphone

I wonder at the people we will be, microphone in hand
Telling of his love, revealing to all what they need to hear
More than words we can describe yet we raise a sound
So I pray with the microphone in our hands only Him will be heard


Ezeonyeka Godswill
Oraegbu Philipa
(c) 2022

What to pray about

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 freestyle session. Each freestyle session is given a topic for the poems to address.

On this particular day, March the 26th, 2021; the topic was “What to pray about”. There was silence in the large Christapoet group, apart from my own prattling about the topic of the day and my reason for choosing it. This sort of silence is kinda normal. But at 8:28pm… Hanna Azubuike wrote:

Pray about your heart to God
Pray about your art to God
Pray about your mine to God
Pray about your gold to God
Pray about your genes to God
Pray about your offspring to God
There would always be a reason, so pray without ceasing

And at 8:35pm, UC Truth retorted:

Pray your desires
My teacher once said
When you feel it you probably should say it
To God

So I come bare when I pray
When I pray I come bare
Stripped of all what God should not hear
I come with screams and silent
I come with words and rhymes like a poet
I come with sobs too
And mutters too

I’ve prayed about the mansions and the gutters too

I don’t know what you know about what to do when you come to pray
But I’ll never want to keep from God
An atom of what I really wanted to say to him today

Yeah. The two of them wrote from somewhere real. You see, sometimes, a topic touches you or reflects your current dilemma or just provides an opportunity for you to say something…

Like what Olufunke Ajegbomogun said at 8:44pm.

We don’t want to bother God
Says man made of mud
So we bottle up what we ought not
Leaving our mind in knots
You receive not for you ask not
What to pray about,” You say?
All things my brother, so you don’t become a prey
Everything my sister, on every blessed day
So Unfriend anxiety
Cast away it’s ray
Put on Christ’s piety
Your armour of faith
Whatever it is
Grand or small
Possible or impossible
Serious or minor
Pray about them all
Yes! In all things by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving…
So go on your knees
Lift up those hands
Put your hands together
Lie down flat on your tummy
Stand on your feet
Sit on the floor
Whichever position you choose, just shut out the noise
Surrender all
Cast it to God
Receive His rod
Believe it’s done
Make a loud noise
Wait till it comes

Some of these pieces and sessions, I remember like…an old friend. Some are like a stranger that has been sent to instruct me. I didn’t write anything, nor did anyone else, that night. It was all like a long whisper telling us “what to pray about”.

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:
Hanna Azubuike
UC Truth
Olufunke Ajegbomogun

The Three Abstractions

Time like air is boundless, existing independent of us
Helping us take note, employing us
To nurture after our to-do-list
Yet reminding us the risk
of not being
of not seeing
The thought of it as illusion only makes bold the impact on our vision
An endless circle
Old enough to seal life’s chronicles
Yet does nothing to change it
The only certified entity to bridge it.

Love like the sea, is deep
Accommodating everything cold
and warm-blooded
Not seeking its own way
Needs nothing external to become
Countless questions on its existence
Unending thoughts on its purpose
And like the absence of peace
Making monsters of those who go by without it
The true essence of its fragrance waiting always on those who have gone past feeling
to becoming love.

Death, what happens when you’re busy making other plans
Claiming more lives with its rude interruption
The least talked about of all three
Yet with each blow comes a string of thought on time and love
Each seized breath a trail of shadows to your canvas
With more questions than answers
How much time is left?
Is love evident?
What next after death?

Imani Dokubo
©2021

Baby Girl For Life

Baby Girl for Life
Old age is setting in.
My system does not digest milk anymore.
I take pain relievers every morning
For sleeping late and waking early

Asides animated video
I don’t know what else
People do on snapchat.
I downloaded tictok for that
‘Put your head on my shoulders
But I could not figure it out

Oluwa!
I am becoming my mother.
O ma shey o!
My ‘baby girl for life’ mantra
Has become a caricature.

But I am enjoying old age
I lovvvvvvvvveeee it.
The most beautiful thing about
It is freedom to be.
Learn. Grow. Make mistakes.
And if you are lucky,
All at your own pace

You would think I am 50. Lol
I am looking forward to 30.
I will throw the loudest party.
Haha. You know I am lying.
I will probably coil up in my bed,
Having lazy conversations with God.
Oh. I am the lazy one.

That is, if I get to 30 of course.
My high school group posted
Many pictures of the dead among us.
Left me wondering who the next is.
Life is fleeting.

But that’s fine.
I am knocking out checklists.
When it’s my time
I will go like a baby girl.
Because what?????
I am a baby girl for life.

ChyD
©2021

Kings and Pawns

“We’re all Kings and Pawns,”
Napoleon Bonaparte once said,
“We’re all Emperors.”
“We’re all Fools.”

Funny he should say that.
We, like two Kingdoms, square up.
Blacks against Whites.
Decisions. Decisions.

What’s in your hand, sir?

King Pawn to King Four.
Small beginning steps we take
Believing we’re each of us
The only star in our own movie.

But Knight to Queen’s Bishop Three.
Counter moves from counter selves
We sabotage our own efforts
And wonder what’s afoot.

We’re all Kings and Pawns
Though each man in his own heart
Thinks himself different from all.
Superior to all the human-ness.

What’s in your hand, ma’am?

When Bishop takes Bishop,
And we face our true desires
We all deny our deepest truths
For Ego’s sake, for Pride’s joy.

What miserable life we lead
As we approach our end-games
This chessboard cleared of all
And the space evident in all things?

Queen to King’s Rook Three.
Discover Check. And trouble finds us.
Run we may, but hide we can’t.
Now matter where we turn to.

What is this you have in your hand,
Oh fallen man – son of Eve?
What is this you carry in your heart
Oh, daughter of the damned?

If King takes Knight Pawn,
I hope never again will it be said
That we sought for what we knew not
And that all man listened to his own heart.

We’re all Kings and Pawns,
A man once said to the world.
And he – that brilliant devil – he was right.
We’re all – all of us – Emperors. Fools.

Ask not what Mgbeke plans for dinner.
Wonder not when Mgbafo will get married.
What’s in your hand, people of God?
Mind your own business.

Nonso John
(C) 2021

The Bleeding Heart

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