Solitude is addictive
Still you must make accommodation
You must break these walls of loneliness
Let at least few come in
Yes chaos will creep in
But peoples spirit
Will light your heart
With _FIRE_
Ugwu David C.
©2023
Tag: people
Change
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
Out-Heal the Loss
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.
Today, we see the last of the February 25th 2022 poems. Topic was “Regeneration”.
Yesterday, we went through the ladies who all posted inside the 11th hour. So today we begin at 12:10 PM, with the CaP goddess, Chika St. Davnique:
I feel pain every time I think of my sister.
And I’m not thinking about myself when I think of her.
I’m thinking of all the ways in which she was alive.
I’m reliving the moments in which her smile lived.
And the pain I feel, it’s not selfish.
So no.
Adjust your lenses
And somewhere around this period, she got into a sensitive discussion with MeerahZoe. Now because some parts of the discussion was in voicenotes, I will give you a summary of the most important point made during the argument. The rest is honey and milk for CaP members. To join up, GoTo the “Join Us” tab
They were talking about different people’s reactions to loss. Chika said: As Christian writers, w hen we write, we owe it to the world and our audience to say what is true, and not just what we feel at the moment. Infact, whenever we want to be so subjective, we should state that this is us and just our perspective. Making absolute statements based on subjectivity has to stop.
At 12:36 PM, Chika St. Davnique made some some more poetry:
‘Please hold on while your transaction is processing…’
I’m staring lost in thought.
My mind, a multiverse of directions my thoughts wish to take.
Another line from a poem my father taught me floats into my brain…
‘We have come to the crossroad, and I either leave or come with you’
So I go with it.
The thought that we are always in the midst of a transaction. Always coming and going from an exchange. Always living or dying, giving or leaving.
The machine is still grinding, my body is still standing.
I wonder, does the man behind me know I’m lost.
Or is he lost in the endless start of things?
Is he coming and going from worries?
Is he in a loop of misdirection? And does he know the dimensions of life’s transactions?
Does he know what matters? Is he exchanging his time here for true treasures?
Or has he bought into the lie that he owns real estate in Time’s garden park?
‘Thank you for banking with us’
My fingers move of their accord. Cash in hand, I hold the physical equivalent of my time. I stroll on still lost… in thought trains.
Like, are we living or dying slowly?
And what is breathing if life is lived in beautiful moments?
Why does it come in cycles of the same patterns?
Are we living lives once lived?
…car honk and I remember to find myself.
Here.
On the road home.
Kinda like life, right?
And then, at 12:38 PM, catch a glimpse of what MeerahZoe was saying during the conversation:
This in itself is not a bad thing.
I’m a mental health advocate, and I know that self care is not selfish.
I also understand the human impulse to defend what we feel or are experiencing.
I was actually talking about the often masochistic need we have to hold on to pain even when we know it is crippling.
I have to say, I understood both their stances…but I just wrote on at 1:53 PM, probably with the mind to de-escalate the matter:
Black gems;
– made of what I used to call trash
– make me valuate my answers
– prayers sneaking outta coffins
– studded both my belt and cufflinks
What else?
I didn’t heal when you hugged me
I felt hate from my sulking
But I knew that was not important
I’m glad you haven’t kicked the bucket
Glad you haven’t kicked the bucket
Big wolves leaving bite marks
Farm hands turning lone sharks
My heart used to have cracks
Now it’s powdered like its custard
So I give it up to Father
Me I know he’ll take me farther
Speaking healing past the storm’s parts
Wash my eyes with water God spat
After a bit of silence, probably because I write mouth-shutting stuff, at 3:45 PM, Hanna Azubuike:
Please stop burning my eyes with how one should mourn a loss. You have healed, you have forgotten the pain you went through. Help with the Word if you must say something. Let her fully heal before you share how you mourned yours. You will never understand the closeness either. Let the eyes be dried before you point the picture and the different colors.
And at 5:49 PM, Imani Dokubo finesse with a few words from her beautiful:
Things die quickly when plucked from their source.
Root, the plants source.
God, the believers source.
Regeneration never happens without a source.
At 6:44 PM, the final freestyle of the day was delivered by Cap founder, Ezeonyeka Godswill, an enigmatic leader whose words always clear the air:
Writing is vulnerable. To war with the worlds in your mind so that you can birth words is sacrifice. We bear in our hands bleeding mysteries as we concise conscious constellations into careful captions. We know not all is said but what must have been said. The world wonders at writers not because it cannot produce as they do but because writers learn through the pain of introspection how to transport seedlings of thought across mind so that on the winds of communication the death of a world can find regeneration through the planting of these words.
Enough said; REGENARATE NOW, In the name of Jesus!!
Authors:
Chika St. Davnique
MeerahZoe
The Niel Quchi
Hanna Azubuike
Imani Dokubo
Ezeonyeka Godswill
Regeneration on Women’s Day
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.
I had told you in the first part of this piece, that these poets wrote 18 poems on this day, 25th February 2022. I want to do a sort of back and forth with the period that I draw pieces from. This time, I am continuing my account of a more recent time.
The topic is Regeneration.
And I bring you Zoe Ziva, writing at 10:33am, on the 25th of February:
That same Spirit that raised up Christ from the dead, heal your mum and heal my pastors wife too.
Vitalizing, regenerating, nothing broken, nothing missing.
Cardiac arrested, arrested the evil one, our prayers will not cease, this peace will not rest in this, for she will see the light of day on earth, stand on her two feet, her memory will reboot, amnesia would not be a name.
Your mum’s eyes will regenerate, God’s healing balm still has Gilead on it, now it resides in our heart.
Our faith will rise, our hands lifted, we do not forsake our own mercies, we choose to trust in The King rather than observe Lying vanities.
Since I’ve been younger till now that I’m grown, I’ve always seen that faith always wins.
Even in our time, this testimony would be so.
Rejoice.
And at 11:05 AM, the Elegant and Elusive Imani Dokubo:
I join you in prayers
I agree with you in faith
Her sight is restored
Her healing permanent
She sees clearly
The goodness and mercy of our God never runs out on her
We rejoice not in the future but now, for the end we have seen clearly.
Again, let me paint the context. So, one of us, Ade, had just written a freestyle spurt in which he indicated that his mother had just undergone surgery. We all subsequently dove into praying for her through our poetry…very touching stuff.
At 11:08 AM, Aebube with the kiss kiss emojis, wrote:
Just a turned ignition and boom
Men set off in tripedation
It’s not a holy feeling, the jitters are killing slowly
It made me sorrow only
Tell me I’m going to heal really quick from this fear and trepidation, this isn’t some perdition
right?
Of course it isn’t
For Christ paid the ultimate price so I’m forever freed from its shackles
My life is not on hold I’ve been unshackled from the chains of fear, the word alone regenerates me
For he has not given me the spirit of fear but of sound mind and power
Who I’m to agitate about tomorrow’s out come when Yahweh is there
He is the way, the truth and the life, for him alone I mount with wings like an eagle yet do not faint
My strength renewed, no cent used.
She posted that, and after a few minutes, at 11:50 AM, she continued:
They tried to bury me
Not ones
Not twice
For the third time I’m being covered with earth
Fascinating right?
So much they didn’t know
Ohhhh men carefully calculate
With vigour they plan our undoing yet
Ignorance deprive them of their sight
They can’t see right
Though all calculations seemed just perfect
They buried themselves and thought they’re done for, here we’re spouting a leave
With our lips pouted in mockery
They’re left in awe
Our God’s way smarter
We’re his seed buried to regenerate
Just like him we rise
Again and again we’re crowned with Victory to stay above and not beneath.
And then, my darling MeerahZoe, wrote this at 11:53 AM:
What’s more beautiful than a birth?
A rebirth.
The beautiful promise of a second chance
A do over when you’re done over
Twice I’ve lain in the fetal position
The first time oblivious to my existence
The second time wanting to end it
See pain is selfish, you only feel it when you’re self focused.
The man who invented diversional therapy would be out of business otherwise.
Twice I’ve lain in the fetal position
The first time oblivious to my Father’s company
The second time too self-seeing to see Him
It’s easier to ask for a break and a do over,
Blaming the God who supposedly didn’t give it
Than it is to see that the new life He gave you is all the practice you need to be reborn
But pain is selfish, and I would rather reject His comfort than put in the work.
Our faith walk however is sometimes like school, you don’t get past any stage without doing the work.
Standing on my feet again, I hope the sight of the ground from this angle is enough to remind me the next time
That a righteous man can fall seventy times
And rise up seventy times.
Today’s article has consisted strictly of women. I did not really plan that it should be so, but so it has come to pass. Today also happens to International Women’s Day. It makes me wonder, is there a local women’s day?
We hail the woman; for her tenacity, patience, kindness, beauty and industry.
Happy International Women’s Day
Authors:
Zoe Ziva
Imani Dokubo
Ebube
MeerahZoe
Jesus
He, the first born of the spirit was born in a manger
Raised with his people yet considered stranger
Jesus in God’s sight, is considered all that is right
He took whiplashes
That healing be given in all places, races and classes
He at Galilee’s road
Was broken that we be made whole
That we be saved souls
For our salvation was always his main goal.
Jesus was bartered bruised and crushed
All while led to an old rugged cross
To have nails impale his body
That we may become his body
And at the 9th hour, when hope had diminished
He declared it is finished.
For three days , he launched a one man raid.
Defeating devil, demons and death in a perpetual victory parade
And at the third day when he was raised
The power of death was as empty as his grave.
Brown Ini
© 2022
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
The 2nd month of April
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
REFLECTIONS
Life they say is full of risks
But I say more risky is this…
A life without God
We meet people everyday
Some good some bad
But all have come to play a role
Value the people in your space
For one day they will leave you
Or you will leave them
Live a life of purpose
Because after you are long gone
Your works will speak for you
Forgive others for their mistakes
You are a work in progress too
For no one is perfect
Put a smile on your face today
Don’t wait till all your teeth are fallen
For challenges come and go
Ajegbomogun Olufunke
©2021
Christ a poet 