IT'S THE 25TH.

 

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I love the smell of Christmas and

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

From our abundance

Let's join God to make a toast today.

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1.

I've been listening to Carols and church bells

The preacher talked about what happened the night before Christmas

He said love was born 

And three men followed the star to offer Gold Myrrh and Frankincense.

I've been reading a Bible story 

About the immaculate conception

And the birth of God the son.

2.

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

When the weather was cold like the heart of man

And the night dark like the sins on the soil

Heaven sent a shepherd King to a manger.

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

When his children had wandered off the path he choosed 

And lies became a cloud of darkness over his creations

He sent the way, truth and life.

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

When the blizzard of nemesis ravaged mankind

And was shredding it's essence in an icy storm

The creator of nature sent the one who could calm storms.

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

3.

I love the smell of Christmas

The spicy aroma that spreads across the table

And the thrilling scents of celebration

Every moment of this day, stays a memory until forever.

I love the sound of Christmas

The melodies from the carols and bangs of fire works.

The chattering and laughter of a people sharing meals, wine and love. 

Every moment of this day, stays a memory until forever.

4.

While we eat and drink from our abundance

And dance to best music 

Let's remember the lone child on the street

And spare a meal or more.

Celebrate love by spreading love.

While we decorate our Christmas trees and homes

With lights and gifts for the season

Let's remember our penniless neighbors

And spare a light bulb or a gift pack.

Sharing the glow and wealth won't make you dim and poor.

Celebrate love by spreading love.

5.

Join God to make a toast today 

In memory of the beginning

Of a new covenant with mankind.

Join the Angels and your church choir

To sing carols and hymns for him

The one called Messiah is born.

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I love the smell of Christmas and

Winter was a perfect time to give love.

From our abundance

Let's join God to make a toast today.

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© Ifiokobong Etuk (KING of the QUILL)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to our readers and contributors. 

What's your favorite line(s) ?

PLACES I'VE SEEN CUPID'S ARROW

 

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Pierce through a mother's heart

As with tender eyes and time

She watches her baby

Grow from the cradle to maturity.

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Stuck on a fathers biceps

As with wise words and swords

He fights for and prepares sons and daughters

For the journey through life.

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Mounted on the warriors banner

As with a lion like bravery and bullets

He heads for the trenches

To win or die for his country.

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Sailing wildly through space

Like the sensation created by young lovers

When they say sweet words to each other

And seal them with kisses.

I've seen Cupid's arrow

Bounded in the letters from my Heartcode

When in the middle of the night

She punches her keypads just to say

"I love you whichever way"

© Ifiokobong Etuk (KING of the QUILL)

MY CONTEMPLATIONS ON GOD AND MAN

1. 

THE DIVINE 

You see heaven gave us everything

And when it came to knowledge of itself,

It cursed us with a certain kind of ignorance

So blame not myself for my mortal contemplations.

My head has me thinking God is selfish

A narcissistic being so deeply involved with power and control

So much that he decides to share his glory with no one 

Yet in the end, our selfish God thought it kind enough

To leave the earth entirely for his creations. Is that not generous?

Golgotha still has a question mark hanging out on the old rugged cross.

I see two parties justifying their actions and calling each other bad.

To the jews, a man had been blasphemous and was meant to die

How well did man play God?

Yet to God, his son was sent to save mankind and pay the price by dying

How well did God play man?

We were told God allowed it happened. A simple case of "...God killed God"

And till now, the Trinity is yet to provide a name for the Golgotha story.

Murder or suicide?

Then man, in his constant cravings for everything good, played a role and called it salvation.

Speaking of which.

I was told never to question mysteries

So because of this, the Trinity basks in the euphoria of my ignorance

But since science has failed to explain this theory

And my humanity decides to be omni-inquisitive.

I think I'll need a piece of paradise to understand how three person made one

So in all my wishings, I crave for the Pentecost flame to rest on my temple

Maybe that way, I'll see things in a new light.

I have decided not to contemplate on miracles without understanding God first

What's understanding what God did without understanding God?

So until I understand who did what,

Let's just pretend to believe Water to wine, five loaves of bread and two fishes were all possible.

I contemplate because I seek to know

And,

In all my wishings, I crave for the Pentecost flame to rest on my temple

Maybe that way, I'll see things in a new light.

2.

WHO MAN'S? (HUMANS)

Since dogma forbids me from questioning the creator

I think I'll put my question marks on the creation

Maybe that way, I'll be free from the bliss my ignorance offers.

My fear is not in asking or getting answers either

Because I know people try to answer when asked

Yet they don't guarantee you'll like the answers.

Any difference from dogma?

Man answers from what he knows

And what he doesn't, he finds a way to get lost

Unlike dogma that knows all but answers some

Man doesn't know all, yet he answers all

Man claims to know all from the confidence of knowing little

Yet because he can't do without bliss

Ignorance sits on the crown of his finite knowledge.

In knowing,

I don't think man knows a thing.

We might be peacocking in science but we know nothing.

Yes! The plenary of people know absolutely nothing

How can you say you know of all and nothing of your beginning at all?

Genesis or Big bang? How unsure are we again as a race?

For peace, let's leave the beginning for the past

And talk about a common battle we fight differently

Evil. 

Genderless evil in every sense of it.

How does man see it?

Is it only evil to man because it wasn't done by him?

Or because it is what it is?

How does man know evil?

Oops! I forgot he knows nothing.

For the records

Man might end up being the only mystery that fails to understand himself.

What should I expect from something created out of the image of a mystery?

You tell me.

3.

CREDITS AND BLAMES

When we pray for rain, we also ask for flood

We give God the credit for the first

And say it's good

We gnash our teeth and curse the later

And say it's evil from the devil.

When we pray for long life, 

We are only asking for a delayed death

And if God grants one, he grants both.

So why do we say death is not of God?

We pray for sunshine, and heat is part of it

We thank the first for drying our clothes

And curse the later for making the earth burn our soles.

Such pettiness!

Why can't we be thankful for 

Rainfall and flood

Long life and death

Sunshine and scorched Earth

All at once?

If one being created nature

The credits and blames should be to him.

Should it not be so?

4

ON HOW MEN SEE GOD

Ask man to define God

And watch him talk and brag

About a flawless version of his being.

I think man's perception of God is rather narrow

What if there's more to God than the flawlessness?

What if perfection is not the only thing that defines God?

There most be more to the being of God

Than what perception man draws from his imaginations

There's no way the beauty of heaven will be just golden gates.

I don't fear God for the sake of it

God in his mysteries have taken the status of the unknown

And in all I've learnt

I've learnt to fear the unknown for it's unnumbered possibilities.

#my_contemplations_on_God_and_man

- Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

Which line(s) could you relate with?

5.

THANKSGIVING

We call God times more than we can count

For problems. For help. Whenever we can't get our hands around things

So basically, we're cry babies that can't move a finger without calling the father.

Oh! I almost forgot, we call to criticize him too

And we call to tell him he doesn't even exist.

Puny beings!

I think religion made it that way

"Call God whenever you need help and he'll be there"

It's written in the book of every religious basics

And paraphrased to attain some level of the same difference.

Then one part comes a little bit too late.

Thanksgiving!

How often do we call God to show some gratitude?

Spare me the trash of self-righteousness 

And tell me the last time you did some appreciation.

For the last gram of oxygen you swallowed

For the last second you just spent

For the last time the miracle of waking up happened

When was it?

Are you ever thankful?

Am I?

Are we?

?

#my_contemplations_on_God_and_man

- Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

Which line(s) could you relate with?

I BLESS THE DAY I FOUND YOU

I think the Telenovelas are good liars because our love story never started like any scenes they created. Or maybe they tell a little truth, because from what I see, we might be heading to happily ever after

Or are we just on a vacation to wonderland?

Whatever it is, I decided to hold on to every good thing the day I met you. I had stopped fighting for certain things; Fame. Happiness. Peace. Love. Because I believed every good thing would come. Just come! Just! And just like every good thing, you came.

Forgive me for being goofy but I think I can't remember what day it was. What I was doing. What the weather looked like or even what I wore. Everything has been dissolved in the waters of time except for how I felt. 

In the midst of my forgetfulness, I still cherish what I can't remember and leave what I can't hold in my head for my heart. Every day births new reasons to believe blessings still come and although I can't remember, I bless the day I found you.

Like the coming and going of sea waves,

Time and events have come and gone

Yet I still thank heaven for making the day we met.

- Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

"SIMPLE LUNACY"

The only man that knows the taste of poison lives in a cemetery and is sleeping under his own tombstone but unlike poison, same cannot be said about lunacy.

Don't be fooled, the world we live in follows the pattern of a certain form of lunacy that has been accepted and shared globally. It has been so widespread and humans have come to give this new cohabitation a name. The call it "the norm".

In the midst of this acceptable lunacy called norm, is always a rare occurrence of lunacy that gets incubated in the heart and ends up corrupting the mind with wild imaginations of soft kisses on heads on soft pillows owned by bodies under soft duvets.

The lunacy I talk about is always below ground level so your first verb to it will always be a fall.

Your first sense of this lunacy was sight. The day you saw doom in a manner that made you think we all lied about the devil. His dreamy eyes had blue tint and his hair was a thousand times better than the best quality of wool you could ever Imagine. His body was like that of the Hercules you read about in your classes of Greek mythology. Tall, fair and all shades of handsome in complexion and when he added a smile to the picture, damm! You had found the perfect prince charming for your lunatic story and if anyone told you he was Lucifer, you were willing to walk through hell with this creature.

The second sense of the lunacy was sound. You know the ears have great powers when it comes to the creation and paranoia and this is exactly what his "hey girl" did to you. In the eternity of a split second, you could testify even before God that you had heard the voice of one of his angels. 

Sad to say but your sixth sense came third in all this. She just like you was lost in the story you were writing in your head. You made your nights sleepless because your bed and pillows couldn't offer the comfort your imaginations did. You allowed him become a regular character in the screenplay of your dreams in the little pockets of time you couldn't cheat sleep. Slowly he was winning you over and by the time he had your sixth sense fully, all that was left out just needed a little calling to win over.

You lost your senses of smell, taste and touch under one moon visit. 

"A hand to hold 

A heart to love

A lip to kiss

A heaven to feel"

You only leaned in closer to smell what heaven felt like when it happened. You were still lost in the floral explosions your nose was getting from the gardens of Babylon when the taste came. You weren't ready for it but what's the point of declining something that tasted good when your tongue was telling you clearly that it wanted this and nothing else. Heaven sure tasted and smelt good, for once, you knew there was more to the lips and tongue than covering the mouth and saying words.

You couldn't think of the sweet things you had tasted before like chocolate, strawberry, cakes, sugar, honey, milk, and vanilla because none of them was a match for Lucifer's tongue and that's how you knew why lies were sweet and the truth was bitter. 

To crown it all, you needed to open the doors for him to find a way inside you and that was how the last sense came about. Touch. He touched you so well. First with his tongue and then with his third leg. You welcomed him into you with closed eyes, soft moan and a tight grip of the duvet and in he was to do wonders in your wetness and succulence.

Once in, he kept running in and out in a progressive rhythm. He did it so well that you didn't need words to tell you he had a mastery of what he was doing. You weren't ignorant either, you responded to every thrust with the right moaning note to match and for a good ride, you knew when to tighten and loosen the carriage way. Slowly and quiet gasping, then a little bit faster and a peaceful call for "harder", then a fast pace with closed eyes and a more soulful moan, then the fastest came last with you screaming in the euphoria of lunacy until you became a storm with gargantuan waves of orgasm slamming the doors of your womanhood and making it's walls quiver. This was heaven. You couldn't think otherwise as he gushed his liquid seedlings inside you. That night was weather for two.

To think that this lunacy you were living was forbidden was impossible. How could something so sweet be given such a bad tag? Truly you were convinced that when it came to this, ignorance was not bliss but missing out.

Then a time came when he played the endgame. Lucifer he was and Lucifer shall he remain. You only knew of the few beauty of hell and by the time you knew of the countless horror it held, your soul was lost already.

In the end of the story, you get to wail from a never ending pain and when asked about what love intertwined in lust meant, you only spit at your disgusting past and say it's simple lunacy. Such understatement!

© Ifiokobong Etuk

( KING of the QUILL )

Picture credit shutterstock.com

FOR MICHAEL JACKSON

Before I started loving boobs and pretty women,

A good number of my childhood fantasies revolved around the wonderful and creatively carved masterpieces of entertainment Michael Jackson was putting out right before me on the TV and radio sets.

MJ was one person I loved for many reasons. His voice, his dance moves and the huge achievements he was getting for his name in the course of his career.

There was never a time in my childhood I dared to skip a track from him no matter where I was rushing to. To every extent, I was and I'm still a fan of the King of Pop because his name alone used to be and is still a whole different form of entertainment.

I remember four year old me waking up and crying all night and pestering my parents to get me the type of shoe he wore to shoot his Billie Jean video. I mean that was how far the concept of him having every tile he stepped on illuminate. I wanted it so badly that my childhood reasoning didn't for once think it wasn't the shoe but the video production and I didn't stop until I got whipped.

Whenever I had control of the home entertainment set, I was either  watching cartoons or playing MJ and trying to mirror his moves and singing along at the same time and no matter how sad I was, the moment I heard or saw something from him be it a track, a snippet, a newspaper cutting, a video clip, an instrumental, just whatever, I was bound to get happy again.

I would talk MJ all the time, do my poor moonwalk and even try to act out the scenes from videos with my senior sister and yes, I  was gradually becoming a freak.

Actually, I was enjoying the MJ freak I was becoming until my dad took the African parenting step by cutting me off. Sad to tell, but a time came when I was banned from seeing MJ on TV and the only chance I had to hear from him was when his song was played on the radio. I had to watch with enough pain any heartbreak could cause as all his tapes and video CD we had of him sat comfortably in a carton on my dad's wardrobe and I didn't even have the power to touch them.

2008 and early 2009, the media was getting choked with news about my beloved MJ. This time, he wasn't having a mass airing of his song like he had for "Black and White" in 1995, he wasn't bombarding the world with another album, he wasn't winning eight Grammys in one night like he did in 1985, he wasn't having to appear in court for one of his numerous celebrity controversies, he wasn't doing the moonwalk at the Motown 25th anniversary performance, he wasn't recording a "we are the world" song with the other big names of the American music industry, he wasn't on another world tour that would get his hair on fire like it happened in the 1987 "Bad" tour in Japan, this time, he was fighting for his own life. 

I listened to every news story with fear and the agony of having your favorite celebrity in such a painful condition. It was either he was having to cancel a show due to health challenges or his doctor was telling the newsmen how bad his condition was getting.

The video clips of him appearing in public was nothing close to the same man that used to amaze the crowd on every stage. What I would see was a man that could barely even breathe having his security aids surround him and deep down, I wish they could protect him from what was coming.

I knew he wasn't going to get better but I couldn't even tell my self that. I never wanted to imagine a world without the King of Pop. It always felt like we were doomed if this legend went away.

25th of June 2009, I started hearing the rumors at school. A friend said he was dead, the other said he only fainted and the doctor was confused, another said that he died and resurrected after ten minutes. I bet you know how crazy these celebrity rumors get. Just so many things I never wanted to hear. 

The first thing I cared about at home was every from of the media I could find. Then the radio told me what I wanted to know but wasn't ready to hear. Michael Jackson, my beloved MJ, the King of Pop was gone. Damm!

"... American singer Michael Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication..."  was all the media could say.

It's been ten years already but his works are still making his name evergreen.

Gone but never forgotten. Rest in peace the King of Pop.

Michael Jackson

August 29 1958 - June 25 2009

© Ifiokobong Etuk

( KING of the QUILL

#NOTEPAD

PATIENCE IN GROWING

Growth is certain and we all know that. It's part of the characteristics of living things we all learnt back then at elementary school, MR. NIGER D remember?

Growing is fun and beautiful. I mean the idea of having to record improvements and success is something every human being and organization in the world wants to do. It's very human and natural for anyone to do what is necessary in order to move up to the next step or level in any field of endeavor. 

Growth is long process, it takes time and requires a lot of work as well as patience and this is what most people lack. Many people just can't wait to see themselves at the top.

In the quest for growth, impatience is one infirmity that leads to opposite results in most cases. Many people want to grow so fast beyond the natural Order of things only to end up failing and this my friend is not what you want to do.

Understanding that seeking growth impatiently is dangerous is something you need to do and always remain conscious of.

In whatever you're doing, the process of growth will always be tough and time draining. Sometimes, the time frame maybe shorter and sometimes it might be longer but no matter what, you must stay patient and positive enough to make sure you undergo the full process for the purpose of your well-being.

You don't have to be in a rush for any reason because every second in the growing process is important and should not be neglected for the purpose of trying to be hasty.

I know it's hard to wait patiently especially in a world where people grow in different time frames. There will be days you'll feel like you are not making any progress maybe because someone your supposed to be with is way ahead of you or because someone you're supposed to be ahead of is coming up to your level and your aren't moving at all. You shouldn't feel bad at times like this because every person belongs to a different time zone of growth and no two persons share the same time frame in growing.

Some situations are bound to make it nearly impossible to remain patient. This sometimes makes us to doubt the process and start believing a lie that says there are easier ways to acquire growth without having to follow the natural process. In the real sense, this is actually when you need to be patient the most.

In all your doings, always remember that growth will certainly come and all you need to do is to work and wait patiently. It's going to be hard. It's going to be tough. It has always been that way. If growing was an easy task, then people at the top would have never been celebrated. No one would have appreciated Mohammed Ali if reaching the peak of a boxing career was easy, nobody would have celebrated Chinua Achebe if writing African literature was not an uphill task, we wouldn't have accorded any respect to Michael Jackson if becoming the King of Pop was something anybody could do, the men and women we look up to today as icons wouldn't have had these titles added to their names if what they did was easy, it was not, and it will never be easy and that is why those who get there deserve to be celebrated.

We will all get to the top one day. I mean you and I because we sure have what it takes to get there. All we need to do is remain patient enough to work on ourselves and develop steadily. In essence, growing till the apex will take long, but we must wait.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

First published @FelieMac.com

#NOTEPAD

During one of my classes on Media Content Analysis, our lecturer brought up a question that would change our perception of the media forever.

"By the way, what is objectivity in the media?" He asked.

As 200 level students, we all tried to define the word "objectivity" according to what we had learnt in the previous level, what we had heard of somewhere and what our mobile phone dictionary could provide.

After taking enough contributions from the class and explaining the concept of objectivity to a crystal clear state, he asked a second question.

"Can you point out any media house that practices 100% objectivity or is it even achievable at all?" With that, the whole class went silent. Everyone thinking without any positive response.

From that lecture session till this very minute, I have had more that enough reasons to say that objectivity in the media is unattainable. Believe it or not.

No media house in this world of human existence can boast of 100% objectivity in all its daily reportage. Not even the BBC that serves as a model to many other top media firms in the world.

The truth is that even in the apex of professionalism, every media house will only show you what it wants you to see and never the whole story.

The media is controlled by humans and until humanity losses all its strings of subjectivity which is almost impossible, the media will never be fully objective.

Wether you think it's true or false, every media firm has a name, person, movement and propaganda it protects and promotes and for no reason will it publish what threatens to tarnish the image of what it protects. And guess what? Under the guise of "agenda setting" and "framing" this is termed as PROFESSIONAL.

What you hear, see and read everyday on your radio, television, newspaper and the Internet is not the true appearance of news but a well sculpted and polished version of the reality that has been tailored to fit for the promotion of the media firms ideology.

It is dangerous, toxic and unhealthy to swallow whatever you see on the media hook, line and sinker because you are most likely to end up with a distorted image of reality.

In all your doings, never trust ONE media source for all your information but always try as much as possible to confirm and verify what you are getting from the media through comparison and personal research.

This is just the simple complexity of reality.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

#NOTEPAD

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I love childhood for many things

Fantasies are real and reality seems fake

You play with the world

And get serious with toys

But I hate childhood for a thing

In this fools paradise

A wrong kick 

Can burst the bubble of dreams

Never mind young lad

Play and play for all you care

Wear your happy face

And smile to the little wonders the world offers

Play and play for all you care

For God watches your young feet and soul

So every bubble you kick won't be killed dreams

But a burst of amazing surprises

That will add color

To your childhood story.

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I've heard and read good stories, coupled with experience I've had every reason to say youth is fun. I love youth. It's the only time of your life where you get to enjoy the fools paradise of believing you can do anything. Of course you can but it's easier said than done.

You get to feel like a god. What's more? The crown of responsibility sits on your head and like you've always wanted as a child, you're in control.

Youthfulness is a very wonderful package. So much to make you happy. So much to make you laugh. So much to make you dance. All of these with every energy you'll need to experience and explore everything.

Enjoying youth is no crime at all. For all I know, there's not yet a prisoner that was convicted for that. 

Although slippery, speedy and snaky, the path of enjoying your youth is well defined and the ride is running at the speed of light.

Light is speed and like speed itself; every wrong turn, every wrong push, every wrong aim is a certain disaster and that's what you don't want.

Everyone keeps saying it. There's a thin line between enjoying youth and ruining life and you will never know when you've crossed it. It's just like dying in your sleep, you mistake the afterlife for a dream until it's too late.

I didn't write this because I'm a saint or because I'm done with my own ride or to sound like some hypocrite or something. I'm still riding too and I hope and pray I'll get to tell the story of my ride one day.

In the end. It might be two decades from now or more. It might be to my grandkids or students. It might be in a family dinner or a birthday. It might and it might never be but I pray it should and it should come with smiles and an exhausted to-do list. I hope you do too. Old age will be more fun than youth provided we ride well. Trust me.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

#NOTEPAD

After pornography, the next worst thing you can do to your mental health is having conversations with people who are dumb enough to believe that learning new things is a total taboo.

Believe these words or not, our world certainly has a fair share of these people and fate has distributed them so evenly that you'll always get to see one everyday.

Experience will tell you that every word these people say, every point they make in an argument and every opinion they share is never bare of toxicity. 

They carry a rare kind of toxicity that affects the most precious possession you could have as a human. Your mind.

Whatever it is, in all your doings, try not to engage in any exchange of ideas with these people because it will always prove to be a waste of valuable time, energy and brain power. Good morning and happy new week. 😊

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

JUSTICE FOR UWA: HOW FAR WE'VE COME WITH THE POLICE.

While America and a greater part of the world have been submerged in an aggressive online and offline protest against racism, the Nigerian narrative have also had the internet on fire over one of the most gruesome, appalling and horrendous malefactions to be committed against any person in God's green earth. Rape and murder.

Nigerians have had their social media timelines become an inferno of reactions, comments and protests sparked by the horrific rape and murder of 22-year-old Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, a microbiology student of the University of Benin. A hideous act of misdeed that took place at one of the Reedemed Christian Church of God branch in Benin city, a church where Uwa worshipped with her parents until her tragic demise.

News report had it that Uwa (as popularly called by friends and family) had left home on Wednesday May 27 for the church to read just like she had been doing before and ever since the initiation of the lockdown order in the country for very obvious reasons only to have her paths cross with that of the miscreants that had a wicked and violent nonconsensual carnal knowledge of her and sent her to her early grave. 

These men with nothing but evil intentions didn't just stop at raping her, they went ahead to attack her with a fire extinguisher making her sustain serious injuries. Three days later, Uwa died in a hospital and the news of her death have given the Nigerian social media space an offline gist communities a shock they are yet to recover from.

The news of Uwa's death was received by numerous reactions from Nigerians calling out to the appropriate law enforcement agencies to swing into action and make sure the culprits were made to face the law. 

One of the first of these effects was the trending of the hashtag #JusticeForUwa on social media. A trend of had numerous of Nigerian top celebrities condemning the totality of rape as a crime, calling out for justice for the deceased, and also sympathizing with the family of the victim.

Sooner than later, Nigerians got a reassuring message from the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu who through his spokesperson, Frank Mba issued a statement on Monday vowing "that the force will surely bring the perpetrators of the callous act to book in the shortest possible time.” 

The IG also begged Nigerians to remain calm even though it was difficult to due to the extreme emotions Uwa's death evoked.

The statement also informed the public that the IG had drafted investigation aids and forensic support to Edo state all in an effort to ensure the Uwa's killers were stripped of their present anonymity and made to face the punishment for rape and murder as provided by the Constitution.

Yesterday, a report that confirmed progress in the tracking and arresting of Uwa's killers surfaced on the internet. Nigerians were given yet another reason to believe the police were actually doing something when news came that one of the suspects was identified, tracked and arrested.

The development was made known to the eager public through a statement from the spokesman of Edo Police Command, Chidi Nwabuzor.

Nwabuzor claimed the suspect was identfied through the fingerprints that were left on the fire extinguisher which is the murder weapon that was used against Uwa.

A lot of Nigerians including myself are hoping and praying that Uwa's case doesn't get swept under the carpet like others that were before now and until this moment, the Nigerian Police Force have been doing the opposite.

Almost all hopes have been on the competence of the NPF despite the recent happenings like police brutality and killing of innocent civilians by trigger happy policemen that have created a bad image of the force.

The Nigerian Police Force sure has its own weakness and the public is clearly aware of that but no matter what, Uwa's murderers must be brought to book and the NPF must give it their best shot and nothing else.

After putting up this post, I'll join the rest of Nigerians on the internet in tracking the latest development of this story and others. For judging wether or not the NPF is equal to the task of solving Uwa's rape and murder and also the other numerous rape cases that have been troubling the internet lately, I will try not to.

Rape and murder are crimes and Uwa deserves justice even in death. It will surely come because it's the only thing we can hope for at a time like this.

Uwa will get justice. 

I hope

I believe

I know.

May your soul find rest, Uwa.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

Kingofthequill.blogspot.com

For those of you that justify rape, don't come near this post else, the social media principle of Tiger generator will be your portion.

MY CHILD

The moon was smiling at Grandpa's homestead

I could hear my clansmen pounding the leather drums

Crickets chirping and owls hooting

This was the African night I longed for.

Grandpa laid asleep

His face up, while his back faced the earth

He was among the fallen heroes of the Hamlet

Sleeping six feet below a pile of sand.

Grandma sat on a wooden stool

Chewing on her youthful days 

As she munched her chewing stick

Her eyes staring into the future as she thought about the past.

My child! She called out

Come sit close to me

Under the luxury of this moonlit night

Let me tell you a story

A story with which I'll write history

On the clean slate of your childhood memory

Let me tell you what my father told me

About his father and the fathers that were before him.

Once, your ancestors were giants

Men that wrestled with leopards and lions

Men that fought with tigers for tribes

These men carved the ivory mask of Benin

They made the furnace that fired the terracotta

They carved the Calabar statues with elongated arms

They danced to the tune of the Tom-tom and Kakaki

They lived the written literature of Moremi, Mutanda and more.

Your ancestors were great men

Their braveness the height of the Kilimanjaro

Their love for one another flowing like the Nile

Their strength like the raffia ropes of Ikot Ekpene

Their African spirit was wild fire in the harmattan

But like your grandpa,

They died forgotten as their red caps lost its colours

The day they died, 

The African spirit fell asleep

What killed the African spirit 

Was the question my innocent childhood lips could mutter

Change!

The white change

As the church bell rang from afar.

Grandma pointed at the crucifix

There lies the reason

That cathedral sent the African spirit to sleep

It made us cast away our sack cloth and follow the cotton cassock

We lost our fathers because a man came to teach us how to say our father.

And like sheep, we ate the wheat and weed from the pastures of the pulpit

And till today, like sheep, we obey the shepherd and not the master.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

PALLBEARERS

PALLBEARERS

Your legs are revamping brooms

Sweeping the life out of the way

As you stride in a dancesteps of the dirge.

Your shoulders are open umbrellas

Carrying sleeping souls and dead dreams

In the parade of a last respect.

Dear pallbearer.

Does your shoulder ever ache

From carrying the heavy burden

Of a widows wails and an orphan's misery?

Does your soul ever feel sober

To the dirge meant for the men you lift

In the long procession to resting in peace?

Does it ever occur to you

That while you're just working for butter on your daily bread

The world sees you as ambassadors of death?

I salute your courage for many million reasons

To march in the midst of tears and not tear

Offering your shoulders to lift the funeral burden

While your faces become a mental image the dirge creates.

I worry about your end more than mine

For if you lead all to the grave and none is left

What feet shall walk you home when you die?

What shoulders will lift your cups in a toast?

What voice will sing your dirge?

For if you lead all to the grave and none is left

Then none will have the right to bid you farewell.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

AT THE CROSSROADS OF TIME ( a duet )

AT THE CROSSROADS OF TIME

A duet by Ifiokobong Etuk and Artitude

IFIOKOBONG

Dear future self

I know you're living the life that was a dream the day I wrote this

With my eyes closed and my mind wandering and time traveling

I wrote this so that one day, you'll get the chance of hearing from your younger self

And have the rare opportunity of knowing your past didn't die to time.

I know you've grown to become the big picture I used to paint with words

But the imagery I wish to create with this

Is that of when the canvas you now live in was still blank

Before muse turned you into the Da Vinci of words you now are.

I hope you now sit to dine and wine

On the table discussion of men whenever they talk about legends 

And remember how the art became a potion

That you drank and became immortal 

Living forever on every page that met your Ink.

The day I wrote this

I was young, living in the solid reality of a present that is a past for you

You were in the future that was promising but never promised

A sacred mountain top in the wild of my imagination

That I wished to reach someday.

On the day you'll read this

You will be the solid reality

And this will be just another piece of time from the past

And I will be nothing but a liquid memory blended in nostalgic wine.

I write this to remind of your days of small beginning

Of when you wrote your emotions in small verses

Of when you were just another poet a nobody knew of

Of when your rhymes were too primary to wow kids

Of when your puns were not playful as intended

Of the time that was before the world knew your name

So when you read this

You'll sure have reasons

To propose a toast to the victory journey your life has become.

ARTITUDE

Dear Younger Self

I found your letter between the pile of books you buried it 

And to realize I was once you, makes me miss you so much.

Life is much more crazier than you envisaged. 

There are no big pictures, just big words. 

Don't get me wrong, I've connected every dot you wrote 

but the imagery is still a faux.

And Yes, 

I'm big now but more like a lonely elephant stuck in a pile of poop.

And, fame is just a popular thief that sticks a gun in your mouth

Forcing you to give up your right to a private life. 

There are no legends here; 

Not even me 

Expect for the bottle of chill drink that made it to the new era. 

There are nights I drink myself to bed 

And when these folks speak to me about legends, 

I just think about the liquor that sleeps in my tummy.

I think, I understand why they all call me legend and with the same breathe

Ask me to buy them a bottle of drink.

I miss you;

I miss when words had true meaning

And fame didn't know my address.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

  (KING of the QUILL)

© ARTITUDE JOR

ONCE UPON A CHILDHOOD

ONCE UPON A CHILDHOOD

Happy and cheerful souls we were, without a problem in the world
Like Kola, we broke the day with prayers and smiles
And like flowers, we folded asleep at night.

To grown up folks, we were just kids
Playing and rolling in the sand
And seeking to catch a butterfly by hand

But to ourselves, we knew we were kings
Ruling over the ambitions we nursed for the future
Without the fear of fate and it's doings

We worried about little things
Like how the siy got the lovely rainbow
And how the tortoise cracked it's shell

But slowly. Very slowly, without notice
The waters of time dissolved the solid reality pf the present
Until it became a liquid memory

And now
When we talk about childhood
We drink from the chalice of nostalgia


© Ifiokobong Etuk
  (KING of the QUILL)

Dear Lover series (2)

DEAR LOVER

It's my funeral already

So let's make a cake

That's what lovers do right?

The cemetery will make a good kitchen

A countless shovelfulls of sand 

A wooden rectangular cake pan

The earth will be the oven

And my carcass the dough

The real cake is me 

Six feet deep 

Meanwhile

My tombstone is just a well designed icing

Leaving sweet memories for my mourners.

DEAR LOVER...

I'm at the gate of heaven

God asked me to describe the mortal that sent me here

So I'll do it in just two lines

I tell him you are so handsome that his Angels would fall for you

But if hell had half the darkness in your heart, the devil would repent.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

  ( KING of the QUILL )

Dear Lover series

POISON

The love you gave me was poison
Killing my senses and blinding my thinking
So I fell dead over your lifeless Love

I died slowly and sweetly
On the arms of my killer
Because he was dressed in the costume of a lover

I got know too late
That there's nothing like a love portion
It's just poison in a well told lie for a vial.

DEAR LOVER

Our love was never a table top
I was never good in economics of the heart so
Equilibrium was absent

Our love was a see-saw
One up and the other down
You were up on your mistress
On the heights of her moans

I was down

Thinking deep
Until I got a head shot
From a bottle of snipper

So let this poem show the structure of our love
In unequal verses

© Ifiokobong Etuk

 (KING of the QUILL)

Picture Credit: Internet

❤️

❤️

A hand to hold 

A heart to love

A lip to kiss

A heaven to feel

I'm not falling

Just flying

On the wings of love

Surfing the air in wonderland

This feeling

Is what Neil Amstrong felt

When he walked the moon

Wheightless, love defies gravity

Don't wake me up

If this is a dream

I want to sleep and forever will be too short.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

( KING of the QUILL )

WHO I WANT TO BE

WHO I WANT TO BE

It was the last day at highschool
I remember clearly the colourful canopies and drinks that were cool
We were asked a question
One that left every man for himself to wonder about his destination
My classmates...
Some said they wanted to be doctors
Lawyers, policemen, scientist, teachers, and every other thing the African parent would be proud of
I was lost
And when the time came for me to speak, I said what the crowd never loved

I told them who I wanted to be
I said I never wanted to be just some name on my employers pay book
I never wanted to be that old man that lives down the street
And at seventy the only thing you could boast of is the monthly paychecks I've cashed
Living in an old house, driving a car decaying from decades of use because I can't get a new one
I don't want to just live and die with only my tombstone to immortalize me
You see naked I came to the world but I promise to leave my legacies in a lovely linen


I wanted to be that man
Who would get to the mall and a stranger stops me saying
I was touched and impacted by your words
I want to be that man that brings my countrymen together through the most beautiful of lines
I want to be that voice that spoke life and inspiration into a brother that was once lost
I want to be that African voice that makes the black man proud to wear his skin
I want to be that person that personified poetry into his own person

You see dreams are different and no two men have the same destiny is now a cliche
But like it sounds, mine was different
I wasn't sent to the world to sit behind a desk a give prescriptions
Neither was I sent to talk a save a man from jail in my jurisdiction
I didn't come to earth to wield the rifle, or play in the lab nor give and mark classworks
My mission was separate and because I followed it doesn't make me less
I mean less of my classmates leaving the academy with one star on their shoulders

My calling is in the ministry of words
And anytime my human nature feels too lazy to do this
My guilt makes me pick my pen to write down the pains I feel so you could feel better
So I try to contribute every metre to fill up these vacuums we have in the world today

I want to be that old man
Sitting with a lot of smiles and grey hair
In a world of the Future
One I helped to build
As a parting gift to my children and generations unborn
So they'll come to know
Of a poet who wrote his name on the pages of forever

That's who I want to be.

© Ifiokobong Etuk
(KING of the QUILL)