Tag: Whisper

What to pray about

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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 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

MY LOVER AND I

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Every day, I wake up with a smile
Knowing that while I slept,
Oblivious of my surroundings
My lover was wide awake
Watching me all day long
Yes! All day long

On some days, life happens
I sometimes withdraw in fear
As my adversaries gain ground
A whisper of comforting words
I am with you always- my lover says
Yes! With you always

I could become careless
Going astray in my utter foolishness
Desiring to be free, I get enmeshed
Confused, bitter and lost
Then he finds me – He was looking for me all along
Yes! Looking for me all along

I love him but He loves me more
I give to him but he gives me more
The ultimate he did on the horrendous cross
Freeing me from sin and death
Making me His forever
Yes! I am His forever

The Lord has appeared of old unto me, saying, yea
I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Jeremiah 31: 3

Ajegbomogun Olufunke
©2021

EVEN IF FOR A SMILE

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As I gaze the blue sky with my tired eyes
Swimming in the ocean of my mind
Word draining and words building
My tired soul in complete disarray

Will I rise again like these ocean waves?
Renewed with strength that won’t cave in
But this weary soul needs some hope
My tired mind, helpless as all look lost

Would you like some pie sir, a whisper?
My eyes alight with a new glow at the smile
A petite brown haired girl with green eyes
With the brightest smile I ever saw

Yes please, little smiling one I croaked
I stretched forth my tired hands
My grieving soul a teary-eyed. My wife and
My little girl will not return, alas

Oh what a pain untold to lose your world
But this smiling one renewed my hope
Not to end it on this deep blue sea
But to start all over again even if for a smile

Galatians 6:10 “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith

Ajegbomogun Olufunke
©2021

Amazing Grace

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Amazing is the grace
That has raised you from the grave
Granting access by the body broken
Of the one who only could have endured being broken
That you would be pieced together
And by the blood
Of the one who could spend it
Just so you’re bought back.

Amazing is the grace
that has called you amazing
And has made to shine, your face
Amidst a world that darkness strive to thrive
You, Grace has lifted and called light

Amazing is the grace
That will not let you fall
It will lift you up your face
High above the gloom
And cause you to behold the looming rainbow
It’ll whisper might to your heart
And endow your night with a starry glow

Amazing is the grace
That has called you
Even more amazing is the one
Who has given this grace graciously
He has called you His beloved
And can’t bear to see you lost.

PearlyThoughts
©2021

Mary’s Cross

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Scandal has tingled the villagers’ ears
And engendered the gossip mother fears.
I find her, alone, dissolved in tears
From what she’s heard in the marketplace.

When I go for water, my ears start burning,
As I shop for fish, my feet start turning
To run, but I’m gradually learning
That their hisses can’t rob me of God’s grace.

They tell my father it’s a shame.
They tell my mother she’s to blame.
They whisper to others that I’m a stain
On the high reputation of this godly place.

A swollen belly can’t be hid
Nor the depths of disgrace into which I’ve slid.
Next, my marriage vows they’ll try to forbid
And work to see me exiled from this place.

In the angel’s words it was God I heard
He’s wiser than the scoldings of this world.
I’m told if I faithfully follow His word
I’ll hold the Creator of all time and space
In my arms.

Pamela Urfer
© 2021

The Changed Man

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Behold all things have become new
and the old lie in a forgotten heap
childish memories of me digging
underneath my bed on a Sunday morning
for where I’d tossed in my old pair of shoes
nowadays the changed me keep them up neatly
on a rung of wooden stiles the carpenter calls a shoe rack

Bible sleeps on a bedside stool
for a constant bath in Holy words I reach
across to it as often as I go
drink in words that lead, that guides
same letters in the book, a new meaning on the morrow

I remember mom’s narration on Joseph
please tell Dolly Parton
I share same story with her Coat Of Many Colours
only I took mine to many tailors
at the price of my chopped sandal soles
shoes on worn out feet
grazing gravelled road as they bleed
thank God, praise God I sing
because no longer do I handpick rags
all I see are tailor-made suits
my wardrobe is a rainbow of clothes
none having no holes

Nonetheless what I have outgrown is
the filthy old man inside of me
that cheated at elementary school
and purloined mum’s ten kobo
when she was busy at the hearth
One day aunt Betty suffocated my wrists inside mum’s purse
and gave me her two kobo
number eight of the decalogue says, ”Thou shalt not steal”
I hear you ma, my heart thumps with complete remorse
Tell that to the birds, coo that to baby lions
Whisper that in the ears of insensitive politicians
and the starved masses reaping where they did not sow
maybe they’ll pause then retrace their steps
and make way for the new experience.

Rebekah E.
© 2020

Evolve

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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

Dream

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Deep in my slumber
I heard the audible whisper
A persistent voice searing on my drums
Arise ! Arise ! Arise !

I closed the lids and tried drifting to sleep
But the tone came like the bleat of a sheep
A bang to the ear; It was a raging storm
All I saw was an image without form

Standing like a statue I boiled in red
My mind soaked in dirt and fusty
I tried hearkening to the voice I heard
It was all cloudy and musty

Then came the shimmering beams
And I heard my soul singing
So clear was the message ringing
Live the DREAM!

Ugwu Vincent
© 2019