Tag: Poems

DIFFERENT

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Hello Friends!

Hope you’re doing great?

So last weekend we had our first Freestyle Friday for the month of February, and it would be my pleasure to do this recap with you. My name is Miracle, and I hope you have as much fun as I do. Let’s go!

The theme of our Freestyle Friday session was Different. And as usual, this session was led by our man at the helm, the Niel Quchi

He started off with this beautiful opener at 05:01pm WAT

Tell the Ballards that the story repeats
Calling fire down to burn up the streams
Trying to see over all of the winks
And all of the grace and blessings got me thinking different

Interest

Eyes stayed on the gospel
John 1 is my gust pulled
Out a bottle of the Most High
Found I’m human and I still lie
But the cleansing sense is different
I am Paul plotting revenge
Gotta hit em with a message differen!!

Intern

Holy Spirit on the supervise
They who wins souls are called wise
Some reasons aren’t called ‘whys’
They are excuses that make us no differen!

System

I’ve been writing for a few years
Still expanding trying to match peers
We’ll be different till the chaff clears
Bring blood, no dey bring tears

He was then followed by the talented Tolu (The Alchemist) by 05:51pm with;

Different we may seem, diverse as can be
But beneath our skin, we all are free
Free to love, free to dream
And in our hearts, a common theme

Different colors, different ways
Different beliefs, different days
But deep within, we all have pain
And a longing for love to remain

Different languages, different scripts
Different voices, different lips
But in the end, we all desire
To have our spirit lifted higher


Different paths, we may have trod
Different burdens, we may have carried on
But in the end, we all seek peace
And the joy that comes with release


So let us embrace our differences
And cherish our unique existences
For in diversity, lies our strength
And the beauty of a world at length.

There was a bit of a lull as we took in Tolu’s beautiful words, when the beautiful Sophia Dawodu came in with this poem at 07:56pm

Is there a mirror for the mind?
A mirror to see the changes my fingers have lost numbers to count.
A mirror to see how there isn’t enough breath to count the length of eternal my life now is.
Is there a mirror enough to capture the image of… “new man” ?
“You, mine” branded by the holy spirit was the product when he said “it is finished”
“I, yours” became the awareness of his gift when I said “I believe”

 This was then quickly followed by a beautiful entry by our beloved CAPtain Ezeonyeka Godswill at 08:01pm:

Have you ever thought of the words “make sense”. How it rolls of our tongues when someone takes something from nonsense to some sense our weary gleefully recognize that there is thought behind design and a little bit of the chaos has been conquered.

To make sense is also to confine meaning to limited boundaries. To define design as bearing structured distance from anything else. It bears natural difference as its man-given right. It makes sense.

Have you ever thought what it means when God says I made you. That there is thought behind your design, that you are a little bit of conquered chaos orchestrated and carved to confine structure. You are made. That means you are distant from others. DIFFERENT

And as is quick becoming her custom, the multi-talented Eremipaghmo Pearl came in with a spillover on Sunday by 11:43am:

You and I can’t be the same
There’s no need
No matter how hard we may try
In making our prints like others
We will at best be copies
And if it’s for the fame
we’ll both lose the game

We’re different moving parts of a beautiful Unit
In our uniqueness
We still show the beauty there is
In the singleness of heart
See, same thing may influence our steps
But our response will always reveal our difference

I don’t deny our oneness
For we were hewn from same rock
But when we became chips
Our positioning and perspectives
Gives the world different viewpoints
Of what our source prolly looks and feels like
You and I can never be the same
We’re different branches from same tree

If this isn’t a great way to end the freestyle exercise for the first week of February, I don’t know what is!

I hope you were blessed by these words, I hope it inspires you to be different, to embrace your uniqueness. But most of all, I hope these words remind you whose you are. Have a beautiful rest of the week. Bless Up!

Authors:

Niel Quchi

Tolu (The Alchemist)

Sophia Dawodu

Godswill Ezeonyeka

Eremipghmo Pearl

Out-Heal the Loss

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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

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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