BEAUTY

Beauty.
There. The name I call you.
When I think of your romance.
The honey droppings you coo
Taking me to heights of pleasure.
Blissing me out.

Beauty.
The colour of pollen sprinkled
On the ovary of my mind.
When You sigh, when You speak.
Impregnating my soul with little You’s.
Birthing futures untold.

Beauty.
It’s the avatar of Your words
Taking shape, casting shadows
On the walls of my beating heart.
Making my petals into wings
Teaching butterflies in my tummy to dance.

Beauty.
From down in the brooks and rivers
All through the scrolls and letters
As the Great Nebuchadnezzer
Witnessed, No book had ever
Recorded Your fullness. Ever.

Beauty.
There. The name I call you.
When I remember Your intimidating love.
Of how Mighty You are in all things but one.
Your need and desire for me.
Beauty without Flaw.
My Yahweh.

Nonso John
© 2019

Freedom

I want to be free to live,
A life free from difficulty,
A life with no tragedy

I want to be free to walk,
walk and never be stopped
Free to walk away from that sin that enslaved me,
Free to confront the devil that estranged me

I want to be free to speak,
Oh let my tongue leak, the truth.
I want to be free to spill out words that heal,
Words that plant and uproot futile roots

I want to be free to see,
See beyond diverse challenges,
See an adventure in the midst of peril

I want to be free to smile,
A smile that brightens and brings joy to a troubled mind and uplifts the weary heart

I want to be free to dream,
Dreams that are not assaulted by ferocious nightmares,
Dreams that give the assurance of a bright future

I want to be free to give,
Give without demanding to receive
Free to give myself up, just as Christ did for us

I want to be free to worship,
Acknowledging him who has dominion and lordship

I want to be free to love,
Unconditionally, exclusively and indefinitely

I want to be free to be the creators poet,
Free to get my papers wet,
With blue blood as they surge freely through my pen

I want to be free to write my piece,
Without chaos afflicting my peace

I want to be free to be the “me” that I’m supposed to be,
Not regarding people’s thoughts and opinions of me

I want to be free from pressures,
Free from peer pressures that accelerates my blood pressure
Free from living to measure up and forgetting his “treasure up”

I want to be free from the shadows of my past,
Free to take off this obfuscating mask
I know I committed crimes and crossed lines but I want to be free to bask in his ever redeeming light,
Free to actualize that in Christ, I am worth a Jew’s eye

I want to be free
According to God’s will
Flourishing like the flowers
Gushing with full strength like the waters
And as a tree planted near the rivers whose root spreads across like the garment of a diva

I want to be free expanding in knowledge
thrilling in the realm of possibilities
healing the broken souls with those words gifted from above

So, I desire to be free
Free from the seal of fear and jest
Free from imperfections and wrong decisions
Free the rain of confusion that overwhelms the kingdom on the inside,
Free from the floods of lust that empties grace
And takes away God’s face
I need to be free!
clothed with righteousness on the race
Nurtured on the way
Living to become my very best

Princess
The Alchemist
© 2019.

Express

All about love
All about you
Or I am but you
Slave to my lust
Saved by your words

All about beauty
Nature is unity
With you, in purity
Curse to my head
The force is my red❣

All about peace
In you I see
I will write a piece
To the world that hates
So from our love it can taste

It can taste affection
And see it’s perfection
With the right perception
It can be shaped into love
Although seeming round and rough

Adethatwrites
©2019

REDEMPTION

When you think of redemption
You think of letting go the pieces your life has become
To be put back together
You think of wholeness, newness
When you think of redemption
You think of brokenness
The image of you crumbling, like a folded piece of paper
Your head between your knees, rocking back and forth, mumbling words, seeking help
When you think of redemption
You think of a new page
The already drawn out lines – direction from your Creator
He said, here’s life, a blank sheet, decide if you’ll follow the lines
Or scribble across the page
When you think of redemption
You think of a new person
A life bereft of old trappings
A life, anew
Because love
Because transformation
Because newness
Because God
When you have redemption
There’s that Peace that passes your yearn to grasp its meaning
Redemption let’s you take those baby steps
Your hands in God’s, your steps right behind his
When you think of redemption, you know there’s hope.

IfiokAbasi Okop
© 2019

Dear stranger

Dear stranger,
Do not hold down your doubt, your anger,

Life is no ordinary poem,
With lines, stanzas and rhymes,
Life is no ordinary Odyssey,
With storms, fear and courage,

‘No’ your breath is more,
Breath of life is more than,
a poor poem, a poor journey,
And so I say,
Let the apparition show,
Let the street overflow,
With the words of psalms,
May the words of proverbs,
And Matthew fly across your mind,

But please dear stranger,
Do not restrict your doubt, your anger,
Let them challenge the Psalm,
And proverbs and all,

And when your inner man is ready,
And your reasonable war over,
Throw away all the broken armors,
Of doubt and anger and sit still,
For awhile by the river,

For I am the crown, the king,
The light, the peace,
The truth, life eternal,
In me every road,
Leads the way home,

Dear stranger,
Do not resist your doubt, your anger,
But come, follow me.

Ugwu David C
© 2018

Wrongly Tuned

For quite some time now,
My ideology about you has been skewed,
I realized I have been grazing on the wrong grass, but how?
You see, I have always yearned for us to be tight, like a nut and screw,
But the only problem is I have been using a wrong tool to drive,

I wanted a star but my lines were flat,
I wanted your warmth but my body was far,
I wanted to dance to your tunes but I was tuned wrongly,

But today, after hearing what he had to say,
Rightly, I right my wrongs,
Now, I worry less about Your voice,
And more about knowing you
Come to think of it,
What kind of a son yearns for the voice of the father,
When he doesn’t even know how his words sound like,
So this morning, I seek right!

g.O.D
© 2018

Saved

I like that you wear clothes that keep you warm.
They keep you warm enough so that I can hold you in my arms.
If they didn’t and you were cold I would be afraid I may smother you.
In my struggle to keep you warm and breathing I may smother you to death as cold as itself. It would be a shame. I’m sorry. But I cannot bear to hold you in my arms when you are cold cause I cannot.
If I tried I would override you.
My feet would stretch over your cold feet stroking it so that it yields. I may strike it off totally, knocking your bones off structure. And my arms over yours in a bid to keep them from being cold I wouldn’t stop wiping or swiping until I would have swiped their very skin off. No one would laugh at the funny bones cause they would be dreadful to look at. I’m not kidding.

Your face. My hands wouldn’t stop. In a bid to save it from the cold I’d rub and scratch. Ridding it of every make up or DNA matches. Your chest would be so cold I would stump on it. I wouldn’t take it. Your tommy I would try to fold it to keep it as warm as possible but no I would be tearing it apart. Your back I would try to keep it warm but it would prove too hard I would break it. I would rip you apart. I would reach for your cold, crusted lips. Try to bring it back to life, saliva for saliva, tooth for tooth. I would sweat. But you wouldn’t yield. My want would have drowned you. Stripped you…

I’m glad you wear clothes and they keep you warm. Warm enough for me to hold you in my arms. I love you. And I wouldn’t want to hurt you more than I would want anything else for you. I care that much that’s why I recommend them for you. You may not trust it much but then you would never know how cold you would have been without them. Cause you would be alive, warm and breathing so much so you wouldn’t know what it felt like to be cold. Clothed in your own beliefs, your own defense of yourself, your own pov, everything wears warm about you, from your thoughts on your sleeves down to the socks of articulate speech wrapping the ankles of your feet. And if your body is a house, you’re house warming until your fans have blown the skin of your face such that your lips react by spreading upward on your face like an omelette cooking in a pan.

I like that you wear clothes. They keep you warm and comfortable. I like that because that way, you can smile. But if you were cold, I’d never have access to your mind no matter how hard I scratched. I know that so I’m really glad you wear clothes. I am. Because now I can really hold you without the fear of losing you when what I really want is to keep you.
Signed
Jehovah.

(Let Jesus be the clothes, let the warmth be the love shed abroad our hearts. Rom 5:1-5)

Adaobi

(c) 2018