Free verse – Chronicles of a Journeyman

Day 14: Stand Tall #28DayChallenge

Seven years stood tall
Though short to be reckoned with
In the final scheme of things
Yet the impact of those years
Reverberated into eternity

Gentle voices called out
Echoing loudly in the darkness
Their message was clear:
“Bring home your honor
Even if you lose everything else”

So you stood like a warrior
Fought with courage for truth
Undaunted in the face of fear
Never one to change allegiance
As you fought through each battle

Now you are boldly standing tall
Like the years through which you came
Unashamed of who you are
Or what time has brought you through
And its impact on posterity

#StandTall

Enter In

Enter in

Into the presence of your heavenly Father – your Lord and Maker

Even though you know you’re not good enough

And are fully convinced you’re terribly short of the mark

Your memory is your judge – kept accurate records of all your wrongs

Your guilt crushes your soul beneath its heavy weight

But God has sent me to remind you: enter in.

He sees you standing at the door, hanging around the corridor

Tentatively. Wishing, but uncertain. Hoping, but afraid

Waiting till you do enough to feel like you have the right

But you are not getting any better at being good, it seems

He says to enter in through the open door. In fact, He says to open up

Because He’s been knocking, waiting to come in and dine with you

To make you His treasured vessel and special dwelling

But you must open up and agree that no price will ever be enough

To pay off your sins and unload all of your guilt

Except the life of the Son, who was the perfect sacrifice

The Son has shed His blood; you can come in on His account

The covering of blood is enough; the price was paid on the cross

Do not despise the cross in pride. Rather, accept the price paid

Once for all on your behalf, and enter in to His presence

It is He who purifies and perfects, empowers and transforms

Only in His presence will you be made whole and fulfil purpose

But first, you must enter in.

My Grace is Sufficient for Thee

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:8‭-‬9 NIV

When, like Paul, we reach out to God concerning a thorny situation in our lives, hoping to have the Lord take out the thorn, hardly do we expect to hear the words: “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

Pain

In the throes of pain,
Nothing else matters more
Than the irresistible allure
Of good ol' sweet relief.
"Make it go away; make it
Stop and never start again"
You scream in agony.

Your words turn to gibberish
As the universe fades away
Surely would pay any price
To loose the gripping hold
Of pain, as neural connections
Send signals to your brain:
"The dam is almost burst".
 
But soon as pain is gone
Its memory starts to fade
And its gravity dissipates
What was a "live-or-die"
Becomes a "we-survived"
As people boast of victory
Over the struggles they had
 
Though never forgotten
Yet never as forceful
The only power it holds
Is the fear of its return
Which we easily relegate.
Pain loses its potency
Once it is gone away.

Toyin Taiwo, Sep 2020

Endurance

Face down, body still, unsure what is next. Until the kneading slowly begins. And the pains flash in and out. It is bitter-sweet. You know you need it; you are sure you want it. But in the heat of the moment, you are undecided how you feel about it.

Beaten down, to the barest ground. Stood still, like you never thought could be. You could almost deny any of this happened. To give your ego some break from the bashing. But this – it is too real to ignore, too present to deny. You cannot but wonder: how on earth am I here?

But this is your moment, this is your race. This is your hour, time to stake your claim. Head in the game, mind on the road. You are going on the journey, taking it in stride. Your reward is waiting, far down ahead of you. The light beckons you home, beaming with smiles.

Memories, Hopes and Dreams

I should have written this long ago
When the red dust of Abakaliki
Blown by the hot humid air
Settled on my tender, innocent face
And coloured my eyelashes brown
When the hot, unforgiving sun
Beat down on me without mercy
And adjusted my complexion
From a brightly coloured version
To a darker shade of fair
And oft times the heavy rains
Weighed down in quick retaliation
And soaked me up to the calves
In yellow muddied waters
As though I were a battleground
On which the elements contend
Yes, I should have written this back then

When the days never seemed to end
And the nights quickly passed you by
You could never tell what happened
If things were fast or they were slow
There were only blurred memories
Of rural life and township style
Traders’ shops, Meat markets
Building sites, Local restaurants
Public schools, Government offices
The ministries of this and of that
Wealth and affluence that was
Sparsely spread among deep poverty
Then there were flurried imaginations
Of a better life somewhere out there
Dreams of posh cars, the good life
Healthier people, better education and
A hopeful life for every young person

Somehow the seasons had to change
And bring difference to this place
Or take us away to a different place
We had passion and commitment
And many dreams and visions, of which
Some survived and others died
There were troublemakers, smiling faces
And a hope that things were at an end
All those things did come to an end
But now we bear like a stamp
In our hearts and our minds
The memories of those times
And the effects of our experiences
Unyielding to the endless tug of time
Remain a mark on our souls and
Testify to a place and a time
That once was and will always be

Little Boy

Welcome to my blog, and it’s poetry time! I hope you enjoy this piece below. The title says it all, and I’ll give nothing else away. Please like and share with others, and I’m always happy to hear your thoughts in the comments section. Cheers!

Little boy, Little boy

Little boy runs away from me
Sprinting with tiny baby feet
He wants to play hide and seek
Or just maybe run and catch
Apart from running all day long
All he does is eat and sleep Continue reading “Little Boy”

Rock ‘n’ Roll Deity (A Satire)

Deity, oh Deity!

Deity drank whiskey

Deity loved to drink whiskey

We also heard, that he was a whizkid

Once upon a time, Deity got a tattoo

And everywhere, there was hullabaloo

He also loved women, had them so many

They filled his shrine, ‘specially if it was rainy

Deity joked on us, very cruel jokes they were

One could never be sure, to love him or to fear

Deity drank to stupor, was inspired by the bottle

When his anger did pour, it never could be throttled

Around these few themes, did his life always revolve

When we sought it out, we found that’s how they evolve

Author’s Note: Around the world, there are thousands of deities, whose worship involve drinking of alcohol and patronage of prostitutes, and who exhibit sporadic bouts of anger in the midst of endless jesting and revelry. While some of these deities are dead, many are still living.

Now, read the poem again.

Origins

Hello there!

If you don’t know much else about me, you should know I am a Christian, an engineering graduate, and I love to write poetry.

So I have been thinking of ways to tell some stories, and I decided to tell a bit of story in verse. This one is titled “Origins”, a piece I have recently worked on – an attempt to explore a few of the places that have influenced my life the most, and in what way.

It is essentially, an experiment in poetry and story-telling. I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to share your thoughts afterwards. Cheers!

My life is a story of places;

The places I come from, the places I’ve been to,

And the places I am headed to.

You see, I come from many places

From the tiny crag in the rock

Where strong men are made in the silence

From the lazy town by the way

Where the curious are formed every day

From the busy streets of the city

Where dreams are built up and broken down

And tears are mixed with sweat

As rain beats down on toilers and hustlers.

I come from Sagamu,

Old trading post linking Lagos to the hinterland

Where limestone deposits abound underground

And bags of cement complement baskets of kolanut

On their way out of the old and ancient town.

I come from Eleja, before the swamp beyond Ajegunle

Where little boys rolled tyres in walled compounds,

Fought sharp-mouthed little girls for bragging rights

And played ball with young men for a place at the table

Of men. We read big and little books alike,

Recited poems and memorized multiplication tables

In hope of finding our place in this world.

I come from Ayegbami,

Where there was space enough for the brave

And those who had foresight built houses

Among the trees, as population ever expanded and

The boundaries of our civilization was daily stretched.

I come from Ikenne,

Where eager boys and girls found their way to school

In the hope of learning a thing or two

And perhaps a chance to become someone great in life.

Pushed by friends and family, inspired by several stories

We trudged daily to assemble at the school set on a hill

Till one day we all fanned out to pursue our dreams.

I come from Sokoto, where friendly rivalry was nurtured

From Abuja, where teenagers morphed into young men

From Lagos, where destiny began to unfold before my eyes

And friends became family as foundations were laid

For a new set of families just about to emerge

From Abakaliki, where dust and dryness birthed greatness

And men were formed by Divine hands from miry clay.

I come from Port-Harcourt and a thousand more places,

From every place where my life gained definition

And memorials were laid as a reminder for the future.

Memories swathed in unfading music

Line the path everywhere I come from.

Even now, I hear the sounds of every city, every place,

Every road, every room or street corner

Humming and buzzing as my life echoes emphatically

The sound of every place from where I come.

Nothingness

If we take a journey and come

To where you said you are,

You will not be there

In fact, you will not be anywhere

We will be unable to tell

Where you are, or who you are,

Or if at all you do exist

We will doubt all the words

We heard you speak

And imagine that words must be

Bound to a face, or a person

We will doubt the truth of your claims,

Your existence and achievements

And along with it, our own sanity