Best Heritages Poems
It vibes in harmonics broadband, a musical language universal,
Echoing across the heights divides, falling as a thunderstorms,
Raw force of spiritual power, descending from the heavens above,
The angels do yield, surrendering the gift of music unto the world
Of man.
Pierced by their angelic thorny prongs, tender notes of rhythm,
Melt downwards from the silver lining of graces everlasting meadows
Of inspiration.
Separations clouds expose the here ever afters, sparks of the divinities
Fame burning as a torch lighting up the skies white powder showering
The earth with sweet melodic undertones, a thundering vibrating beat felt
Throughout the pulsating heart of nature itself.
Music lives within all things, it binds a connecting link, a
Symphony a blending element, a melting promise between heaven and
Earth, a harmonious balance, light equaling dark.
In the vaults of the skies, the heavenly chorus joins with
The voices of humanity singing a song of complete
Harmony.
What a true wonder is this gift given unto mankind,
To write and sing, to share such expressionism with
One another, music is honestly a universal language
Understood by every nation, or age group beneath
The heavens themselves.
A heritages legacy passed down from grandfathers,
To fathers, and than to sons, and daughters,
Is this the love and wonder of these arts there in
So shared by all members of the human race for
Generations of inspiration to come.
I listen to the songs sang by the morning doves,
To the charming voices of our youthful young,
Than those jolly fellows from days gone by,
You know the old barber shop quorate.
So many variations and depths of degrees,
Harmony, rock-n-roll, to golden oldies country,
Music is a wonderment all to it's own glory.
So we thank you those powers on high,
For this miracle of a gift called music.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
July 23 Scripture Meditations Based on Isaiah 49-52
Key Verse – Isaiah 49:8 Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages.
MY GOD, THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME
Thank You for helping me in facing difficulties
By Your strengthening opportunities…
Please keep my faith’s steadfastness over human frailties
Here am I trusting You with all my functional faculties.
Thank You for helping me in overcoming hardships
By Your upholding fellowships…
Please inspire my heart’s devotion over worldly friendships
Here am I seeking You with all my ministerial relationships.
Thank You for helping me in facing discouragements
By Your exhorting testaments…
Please meet my need’s urgency over temporal allurements
Here am I abiding in You with all my heavenly investments.
Thank You for helping me in facing crises
By Your fortifying purposes…
Please guard my soul’s tenacity over sinful forces
Here am I depending on You with all my distresses.
Thank You for helping me in subduing struggles
By Your empowering might to soar as do the eagles…
Please pull my devotion’s commitment over lustful tangles
Here am I clinging to You with all my life-angles.
Thank You for helping me in dealing with my deficiencies
By Your satisfying mercies…
Please supply my limitation’s lack over attacking insufficiencies
Here am I learning from You with all my inconsistencies.
Thank You for helping me in fleeing from temptations
By Your guiding instructions…
Please lead my wisdom’s decisions over foolish suggestions
Here am I surrendering to You with all my imperfections.
July 23, 2022
Where have all my people gone, the Navaho, Lakota,
And the Sioux,
Choking for a breath of life's sustaining air,
Smothered beneath the white man's blanket.
The beating heart of native drums, are stilled, frozen
In the middle of it's rhythmic thumping, no pauses echo,
Can be heard on the open plain.
The weeping woman kneels, on sacred ground, she sheds
A river of bleeding tears, burning a permanent mark, across
A baron landscape.
Death's black raven shields itself, under it's crimson soaked wing,
Against shames moral injustice, humanity's inhumanity, towards it's
Own kindred.
The final verdict of the white man's justice, based on nothing more,
Than skin color, difference of beliefs, and sheer ignorance.
Extermination, nay a holocaust, greed fever, drives the white demons.
How much blood can mother earth be forced to drink, before
She drowns herself, or spats up everything, with sheer
Disdane, and hatreds malice.
Treaties written in vanishing ink, promises disappear in thin air,
Revealing a liars sharpened tongue.
The odds have always been stacked against those believing
In fairness.
Flights appendages are clipped, on the dove of peace, leaving it
Unable to soar above it's own habitat.
Wreckage’s refugees stumble, in the ruins after math,
Rapes victims of civilizations civilized,
Are left devoid of their heritages legacy.
Elders chieftains representatives of a once great nation,
Smoke peace pipes in the white mans hunting lodge, in Washington,
As human beings are hauled like cattle's cargo,
Taken to reservations burial grounds.
Ancient ancestral beings, lit up heaven's vast expanse, by torches flame,
To guide the souls of the dead, unto their great spiritual plain beyond.
The pale horse gallops forward, without a rider,
And the red people become a phantom tribe, vanishing
Upon the winds shifting tides.
Giving one last final battle war cry,
Why my father but the great spirit answers not.
Behold America's legacy, a world trampled beneath
It's heavy feet, all in the name of progress, or for the cause
Of Manifest destiny.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Cul du sac
Blood tears
Leaking
slowly
the empty face
emotions raped
red raindrops
fancy lollipops
empty glass
filling with sanguine color
drip
drip
drip
We are smiles
en chante
tous
les petits moulins rouges
tombe
casse
drink well from my veins
sleep in my tears
robbed of heart
faceless
fate has fermented
barrels of laughter
in the silent chamber
of broken dreams
Notes: Translations
Cul du sac = dead end
en chante = cheers
tous = all
Les petits moulins rouges = the little red windmills
tombe = to fall
casse = broken
Many have attempted bilingual art, music, song, film, and very few have had success, and yet for me, doing so is a bridge that joins the best of all cultures and heritages whichever they may be, so seeking less success, and more bridges to travel I carry on.
Some things are lost along the line
Some things, beautiful and fine
Driving down the lone road to the stream in my hamlet
It’s like yesterday; like catching birds from their nest
I giggled as I drove by
Mothers breast feeding babies and singing lullaby
Naked boys rolling condemned tires, and
Ripped virgins with little cloths coverings, as attires
I giggled as I drove by. It’s just like yesterday
I remember Jerome and others as we gathered to play
There was the moonlight rendezvous
Where we all gathered, boys, and girls, all of us
There was the tales by the moonlight,
Ancestral heritages, sacrifices and the Lion’s might
The Lion’s might, yet he falls beneath the crafty tortoise
I still can hear the choruses; I hear my youthful voice
I loved folklore songs. Wars songs for strong sons
Let me try seeing if I can still sing one more;
Yes! I still can sing “Omalingwo”
Omalingwo, Omalingwo tee …… Omalingwo
Omalingwo, Omalingwo nwam…… Omalingwo
Omalingwo, Omalingwo dia …… Omalingwo
Nne nei di na Otutu-aja-o………..Omalingwo
Elikwue ma yu atuna ngwo ji ……Omalingwo
Ngwo, ngwo onye oma………….Omalingwo
My God, I feel new!
I can still sing it! Oh God I knew!
Omalingwo! Story of the child of a deprived mother
Jealous king’s wives over ready for murder
Murder and deprivation if that will give them a son
To sit on the king’s throne and shine forth like the sun
Story of good over evil. Omalingwo!
A deprived mother’s son.
I giggled as I drove along,
Remembering my tiny breasts, when they formed
And more fortunate girls laughing me to scorn
I remember these things till sadness beclouded me
I am fully grown now; nostalgia overshadow me
My age mates, plus me, all gone to the cities
We can’t assemble again, just like broken pot in pieces
Oh! The Eve’s tempting apple of white collar jobs
I heard Jerome lived and then died in Jos
Killed by religious rioters with missions unjust.
I heard Nwasombia is a head dresser is Lagos
At 52 and still searching? Celibacy is obvious
I heard Nosike is in aviation, head of pilots
Even Chima is now in parliament in Cyprus
Chima, who spoke big English like “opprobrious”
My age mates, plus me, all gone to the cities
No more gatherings, just like broken pot in pieces
Still driving along the lone road to the hamlet stream
Still thinking of beautiful things
The beautiful hamlet serene things.
THE LAST STAND
Where have all my people gone, the Navaho, Lakota, and the Sue,
Smothered beneath the white man's blanket,
Chocking for a breath of airs life's sustaining oxygen.
The beating heart of native drums, are stilled frozen,
In the middle of it's rhythmic thumping, no pulses echo,
Can be heard on the open plain.
The weeping women kneel on sacred ground, shedding
A river of bloods tears, burning a permanent scare across,
A baron landscape.
Death's black raven shields itself, under it's crimson soaked wing,
Against shames immoral injustice.
Greed's insatiable hunger for land and riches fuels lusts desire,
Behold exterminations holocaust of the native inhabitants,
Nothing remains alive except ignorance blackened shadow.
How much blood can mother earth be forced to drink before,
She drowns herself or spits up everything undigested,
With sheer disdain and hatreds malice intent.
On a black and white chess board the winners takes it all,
Strategies grand masters playing with living pawns.
Treaties written in vanishing ink, promises disappear in thin air,
Revealing a liars sharpened tongue.
The odds have always been stacked against those believing in fairness.
A rogue tidal wave of humanity has wiped out a nation,
And it's culture within the blink of an eye.
Flights appendages are clipped on the dove of peace, leaving it
Unable to soar above it's own habitat.
Wreckage’s refugees stumble in the ruins after math,
Rapes victims of civilizations civilized,
Are left devoid of their heritages lineage and legacy.
Elders chieftains representatives of a great nation,
Smoke peace pipes in the white mans hunting lodge
In Washington.
As human beings are hauled like cattle's cargo,
Taken to reservations burial grounds.
Ancient ancestors lit up the heaven's vast expanse,
By torches flame,
To guide the souls of the dead unto their great spiritual
Plain beyond.
The pale horse gallops forward without a rider,
And the red people become a phantom tribe vanishing
Upon the winds shifting tides.
Giving one last final tribal battle war cry,
Why my father but the great spirit answers not.
Behold America's legacy, a world trampled beneath
It's heavy iron fist, all in the name of progress or for the cause
Of Manifest destiny.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
The Church is one, holy, Catholic and apostolic
Find these words from the Creed, Professed at Sunday mass
4 marks indicate the essential features of the Church
Each mark viewed as a reality and a challenge
Church is one
Bond of love between Eternal Father and Eternal Son
Unites as one people of Eternal God
Church profess one Lord, one faith and one Baptism forms one body, the Church
Church is holy
In the Holy Trinity is the source of her holiness
It is holy from her founder, her saints and means of salvation
The Sacraments, 10 Commandments, charity and prayer presented as holiness of the Church
Church is Catholic
Catholic means universal
Have their own ecclesiastical disciplines, liturgical rites, theological and spiritual heritages
Dialogue is a form of evangelization
Church is Apostolic
Built upon the foundation of Apostles
The college is understood as the principle of their collegiality
Holy Spirit ensures she will not err in faith and morals
Brecon Beacons for pony-treks,Cumbrian fells and bubbling becks;Dartmoor
with rocks rain scarred ,Lake District views beloved of bards.Northumbria, above
on moor and hill,where Roman echoes linger still.Stone-bridged hamlets in the
Dales with enclosed leas along its vales.Snowdonia ,one thousand yards high
reached by slow trains up to the sky.Pembroke with its distant trail so
long,heritages for us to protect and prolong.National treasures to preserve and
enjoy by rich,the famous and hoi poloi.
Brecon Beacons for pony-treks,
Cumbrian fells and bubbling becks;
Lake District views beloved of bards
Stone-bridged hamlets in the
Dales with enclosed leas along its vales.
Snowdonia ,one thousand yards high
reached by slow trains up to the sky.
Pembroke with its distant trail so
long,
heritages for us to protect and prolong.
National treasures to preserve and
enjoy by rich,...the famous ...and hoi poloi.
Superstition
A belief in the mind
Learned from another kind
Baseless only a customary
Born from cultural shine
Easy to preach but difficult to practice
Educated brain and grown up science
Always defunct why such immaterial!
When practised for good from bad
It is acceptable follow just to obey
When it evokes bad from good
Heinous deeds to believe and follow
But as it came from a chain of life
There should be a primary cause
Simple men adopted it for letting it be
As two sides of a coin front and rear
When unnatural charge upon men and other
Implicates doing harm mind and body
A mere matter of trouble accepting unruly
Accepting purpose of would be
Many heritages are most beautiful
Letting human beings matter of glory
We should preserve them gift of ancestors
Let it spare for our progenitors
Abstract may be considered only a feeling
But who have seen their mind and soul
Still all should believe they are within
Is superstition or pure final act of the God supreme
Far from the madding crowd
I treasure the myths you gone through
Once I walk down the streets of legends
Even the weeping dusts reminds me of
Bloods, who immolated their lives to you.
Oh Calcutta! You live with a pride
For ages you are loved
They valued glory above life itself
When they speak of valiance
And guns are still fired in the air
Withal due respect of those souls
Who deserved their nascence
In the realm of your freedom.
Oh Calcutta! You live with an honesty
Not because of the madding crowd
Because you are blessed with eternity
As she flows with her gentle ripples
That streams the ambit of almighty purity
When I voyage down the river
I breathe the air of immortality.
Far from the madding crowd
I travel down the busy streets of the city,
The antique edifices still provides me with
The evidence of such superiority,
Walls still fends against the political conspiracy.
Oh Calcutta! You live with prosperity
Though affected by the madding political crowd
Once you were ruled by the dwellers
Now your sanity being destroyed immensely
By your own posterity
Living in the land of divinity
Of goddesses Durga and Kali
And they still feigned that they are native.
Oh Calcutta! You live with heritages
Not beacuse of the busy primal edifices
But you have the world known aged cantilever bridge
And over a century living the tramways.
Your marbles are still gloried by the dwellers
And they still wonder the hand pulled rickshaws
And admire for the age old alleys.
Far from the madding crowd
I still come across the pavements by the busy roads
Coins dropping with bimetallic sounds in the beggar's bowl
The vendors hallooing with prices on a rhythmical prose
And as I step ahead, I find my foot stuck in the crud mid of the road.
Oh Calcutta! You still live with diversity
Not beacuse of the poor and rich
But you still have few people left helping you in needs
You still have one culture you were born with
Hindu-Muslims celebrating together both Id and Autumn fests
Joining their hands with the christians when December ends.
Oh Calcutta! You still live with your beauty
Not only beacuse you have the beautiful bengali adorned brides
But you still have the chapters of noetic minds
You still exist with love and peace
Only when I find you far from the madding crowded streets.
after Odumegwu Ojukwu
after Chinua Achebe
after Christopher Okigbo
after Dele Giwa
after Kofi Awoonor
after Kwame Nkrumah
after Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
after Nelson Mandela
after Wole Soyinka
after Leopold Senghor
after Flora Nwapa
I am part of this ancestry black struggle
For Africa to be reckoned in the world
not of ancient historical context of backwardness but of productivity
I wasn't part of the python dance
taken to the East against the voiceless.
Our ancestral souls still beat louder
The shrines of our forefathers are not destroyed by palms of westernisation
We still have men of understanding
Men whose hands are legs of fire
We've told the boys that no youth returns to early grave again, never!
This fashion of corruption is gone
Every darkman rules for others to rule.
No politician shall ride on a state car
Whilst many travels on a trapped
roads.Our python dance shall be for restructuring of Africa heritages
not for killing our own blood for fun.
This we pledged drinking from one cup
Gathering firewood that would take us throughout the wet season of this storm
Africa is our home and our hearts to
protect and guide from purple aliens
no more python dance to kill our own.
Yours Poetically,
©John Chizoba Vincent
Die Hinterlassenschaften des Seins sind unsere Spiegelbilder der Ewigkeit
The heritages of being are our reflections of eternity
Los patrimonios del ser son nuestros reflejos de eternidad
There, they are with their scary galaxy of thoughts!
Those that wanted us to sing those songs they never
sang with the moon and the sun.
Those that wanted us to dance the dance they
never danced when the day was younger and braver.
Those that wanted us to achieve those dreams
they could not achieve yesterday with their weak hands.
Busy old parents with often nagging lips to nag.
Ask them where their dreams went in those days
and watch them waving their head in pity no explanation.
We spoke with our spirits of childhood in Africa,
they shout and curse us for abandoning westernization.
They are our faults, the fault in our stars.
Our parents are the architect of our misfortunes.
They preferred Oxford education to Ajangbadi high school!
They preferred London bridge to Third mainland's.
Our heritages were sold with the passage of time,
our culture eloped with the white men's mirror,
our traditions, Now a mixture of stone and rice!
No one wants to take the blame but we whisper,
silent whisper breaking the wind of tomorrow today.
Fragments of the cockrel crows hurt our Images,
Africa is sold cheaply by those we call father and
the blame lies on the weak offspring.
Tell religion he is our first enemy in disguise,
if he argues, tell him the truth from Father's eyes.
Tell the ladies that instagram is not a kitchen,
If they argue, take them to the Memory Lane.
Tell the boys that facebook is their major problem,
if they protest, show them their changed names.
We were made blind, history lied to us through
mother's lips in the season of her sweet songs.
We will scream and break off soonest,
we will rebuild our souls and bodies soon,
when the parrots are home again with their voices,
Africa shall wear a new cloth -
I whisper these words silently to retain your sanity.
©John chizoba Vincent
Cam'god
From Wisconsin the American walked the streets of Lagos
To black Africa welcome! To the pearly continent
Cradle of creation, primordial of civilizations
To the thickest jungles, haven of gigantic elephants
Den of fiercest lions and colourful gazelles
Ours is the blazing sun, golden in the horizon
Rains in seasons in the rainforest
Wildest plantations, lush vegetations
The mighty oaks, cedars, and irokos
Our is the heights, the pinnacles
Kilimanjaro, a supral-archectrural piece
Olumo, a refuge, a fortess and a stronghold
The towering Zuma rocks, Idanre hills, and the Mambilia plateau
Ours is the depth, the length
The Nile, the Niger, aquatic splendour
The riches of the earth depth, oil diamond and gold
To us belong the ageless heritages, a living culture
The talking drums, the festivals and the dances
Ours are fashion and style, regal and noble,
Batik, adire, kente, Ankara and aso-oke
And flowing African milk, palmwine, burukutu
Ogogoro, kunnu, fura de nunu.
And to us the millennium bestowed
Welcome to Africa, the motherland Nigeria.