For turning on the light

When the night was too dark

For showing me the way

When the road was closed down

For lending me a hand

When the climb was too tough

For pointing out the way

When the going was directionless

For accommodating me in your shrine

When the cold was too much

For allowing me to fly back under your wings

When I was left exhausted and wounded

How could I have crossed the stream?

Without you constructing the bridge

How could I have touched the stars?

Without you propelling me to space

How could I have seen the light?

Without you lending me your lens

How could have smelled the roses?

Without you guiding me like a dove

I’ve been wondering

How could I have finished the race?

Without your cheers

You cheered all the way

Even when I was short of breath

You provided me with the strength

I staggered as I struggled to walk

Crawled when others were speeding away

I even fainted in the middle of the race

I however picked up the pieces

Not just because I found the reserve

But because you never stopped clapping

Praying

Preaching

You never stopped believing

Thanks for being there for me

© Churchill Okonkwo 2009

Sometime I wish I could kill in my sleep

The freshness of the raw meat is no more

The taste of the roasted yam

The ancestral spirits

Good and evil

The madness

The crude sensations

All but long forgotten

Broken

 
Where is the sweet era in the life of a man?

Tell me you’ve not lost it

When shall we get to land captain?

© Churchill Okonkwo 2009

God has been good and his mercies are for evermore.

Love straight from heart

With no string attached

That is the way I initially like it

Then the attachments

The entanglements

Just like the germinated seedling

It has to be nurtured

Cared for

Protected

Or simply put

The acquaintances

Develops to friendship

Do you believe in friendship?

© Churchill Okonkwo 2008

Love

It is like a flower

Like a Seed

Sown on a fertile soil

It germinates

Natural

Pure and simple

That is how it usually starts

True love I mean

It comes from nowhere

Just like a joke

Usually through casual acquaintances

Before the developments

© Churchill Okonkwo 2008

I

The mysteries of human life

The success of our lives

Was also the cause of the tragedies

Tragedies are everywhere

Even among the churches

Full of self anointed “chosen ones”

“Winners” of the new God

“Metamorphosed” ones

But the pastors are having a full house regularly

As long as there is poverty and frustration in the country

And there has been poverty in the last three decades

The congregation look as thing as an orphan

Fed grudgingly by a cruel master

The church crawls sluggishly forward

Like a tortoise carrying a house

Bugged down by “spiritual” aids

Sycophant-like shelf

Held captive by fear of hell fire

The “pastors” - Imposters

Who committed to memory

A few passages from the good book

For the purpose of lending to their fraudulent sermons

Stealing in the name of God

The only distinguishing factor

Is that they are not “armed”

But armed they are

Armed with terror

Threats

Blessings – real and imaginary

Breakthroughs

I thought for a moment

There is something just sinister about most of these churches

Dad echoed my thoughts

They said we have the heart of stone

I said we have an open heart

That they need to shed their shelves

They said I’m not in the “spirit”

II

Charmed by the poise and confidence

Of their pastors and pretty young wives

The congregation melted

Cast down under foot and trampled

Their pastors

With disoriented sexual orientation

Enjoyed counseling young women

Fornicating and aborting

Charm encountering charm

The pastoral school didn’t have any effect on them

Hence they are internally changeless

Revival

Blessings, more blessings

Receive, receive it

Catch it

Hold it

Fold it

Someone made a pledge of 1 million bucks

Amen, amen, amen

And when you think it’s over

A moan swept from the crowd

One woman was screaming

Another woman was tumbling

A lady sank to her knees

Finally someone began to cry

Then another

Soon the whole congregation was crying together

All synchronized

Too beautiful

Too experienced

Too artificial

Too crazy

Smoking in the house of God

© Churchill Okonkwo 2008

As I sat by the fire and watched mother cook

She recalled stories of the dark ages

Whose significance are now lost

At nine, I ran away

Enough of these blackness and empty holes

I will not see again these fire woods

These black pots

I wandered east

As far as Ijora Bridge

Stopping at the edge of the black waters

That surrounds the National Theater

A year later

I had joined the men under the bridge

Bus conductor at daylight

Monster, smashing car windows at night

I’ve sometimes wondered whether

My brain is made of clay

The same black clay pot I ran away from

My origin still blurred and distorted

My destiny ever remote

What a transformation

I now fight like an ape

With my feet and fist

Bottles and knives

Changed my name from Uche to Segun

Big wrists, big hands

Brown teeth

Scares on my face

But my eyes still looks oddly innocent

Child of circumstance?

Born to suffer?

As years passed by

I metamorphosed

From an indigent child that lacked everything

To a monster that has everything

Yet, I have nothing

I had slept at the banks of the river

As we await the cover of darkness

To ride back to our dungeon

In a stolen canoe

After an unsuccessful overnight robbery

I had seen hulking figures

With sunglasses after dusk

Driving aimlessly in unmarked vehicles

Waiting for marked victims

In this city that is drifting

Pilgrims to unholy spots of Lagos

That never returned to tell their stories

Men on suite as sinister

As men under the bridge

Mother used to call me Nnam

When she though I was the one

The chosen one to wipe her tears

They used to call me Kekere

When I moved with the men under the bridge

I later choose Akwa Eke

I resonance with the rhythm

Emanating from my abode

Yesterday

While walking the dirty alley of Apapa

With hands in the pocket of my cheap coat

In search of a whore in the dark

I heard tongues I’ve heard before

I heard her call me Uchenna

The dark part of my brain was lit up

And the skeleton of my dead forefathers

Started turning in their graves

The whore happens to be kid sister – just turned fourteen

The hovering ghost of my dead mother

Ran forward with her spider-like fingers

And hung my head from an unseen rope

While urine darkened my trousers

I’m the bird

Crippled at birth

The headless dragon

That destroyed itself as elders watched

I’m that schoolmaster that can’t read nor write

The golden egg

That incubated in the bosom of wild creatures

The child, the gloomy future, the adult

With a tale of mindless violence

I’m the Nigerian child

© Churchill Okonkwo 2008

Don’t fear the captor

You are the captain

Rise up and take the cap

Go straight to the camp

And talk to the clique

We’ve to start something

We can no longer be slaves

Let the tyrant see

That we are now set

To start the endless siege

We cannot be daunted

The weapons are done

The battle is due

We’re not afraid of death

For we’re ready now

We’ve known our rights

We’ve decided to fight

And fight we will fight

Until victory is in sight

Until we see the light

© Churchill Okonkwo 2008

We are not slaves

A shrill voice of a child cried out

A desperate cry

That pierces through the uneasy quietness

With anger and distress

It bears the furious expression of a wounded animal

We are not slaves

Yet we slept in parks with the pigeons

Denied access to training and healthcare

Armed with weapons instead of books

We’ve consistently logged appeal

Asked for privileges and not rights

We’ve simply sat and waited for the day

That never dawned

We are not slaves

We’ve to convince them of this

We’ve to hit the truth

Right between their eyes

We have to let everybody hear

                        See and feel

That we are not slaves

Crystal clear

Was the color of your eyes

The first time I saw you

Looking through your eyes

I searched for your souls

Looking for answers to questions I do not know

I continued to probe your soul

The harder I pushed for answers

The clearer the questions become

Questions that released adrenaline

But pulsed the beat of my heart

Questions I saw written all over your face

One by one

I analyzed

I differentiated

Integrated

Before I arrived at the right formula

Now

I don’t have to look at your eyes

To see the road to haven

I don’t have to touch your hands

To feel the grace of an angel

I don’t have to be with you

To experience what it is like to be in love

I don’t have to hear your voice

To understand the rhythm of the waves

I don’t have to do anything

To know that somewhere

Out there

There is someone that cares

When something is right

It is just right

You couldn’t make it so

This is right

I am your forever