Freedom

“I was young you see. It did not concern me that my neighbour’s father was organising a riot, or that he was all prepared to spark a bloody crisis.

All I truly cared about was the art form of play and the freedom of running around in my underwear. Just letting everything loose.

For I had been tempted many times to take off my clothes and join the local kids my age who daily ran free of clothing, and restrictions. They were free to roam and run.”

~ Extract from ‘Advocate for Peace’ TedxCIU Talk by Sandra C. Obiora

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Thinking For Youself

“If you fail to think for yourself, it is easy to get dragged in by another’s grandiose ideas and plans. It is much better to transform yourself into an entity so important and so central around whom most other important things need gravitate.”

by Sandra C. Obiora-Bamisile © All rights reserved

Thy Physiognomy

Written by Sandra Chukwudumebi Obiora 17th Sept.2022 © All rights reserved

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There is just something about you

The curve of your brows,

The slide of your nose

The slant of your lips

The depth of your gaze.

Human Thou Art Immortal

By Sandra C. Obiora. Written 7th February 2022

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‘Let Us make man in Our image,

After Our likeness’ 

was on one newly created day uttered

By the One who existed before time began. 

2023 Let’s Go!

It is always such a wonder when a new year comes around. It is a marvellous thing to be alive. To be breathing, to be thinking, to be feeling, to be sane.

Things may not always be perfect but it is incredible that we have strength in our bones, shelter over our heads, and food to eat.

Looking back at 2022, we see the grace and goodness of God layered heavily upon each day.

Thus, for this new year, let’s live in gratitude. Let our testimony always be

“This is a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, and a life that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. “ Amen

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HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM APOETSBRAIN UNIVERSE! IT’S A YEAR OF GRATITUDE, PEACE, AND GREAT UNENDING JOY!

Time for Everything

“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.”

~ King Solomon. Ecclesiastes3:1-8

My Brain @ 100%

A poem by Sandra C. Bamisile © Written 4.11.2011

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If I could use 100% of my brain’s capacity and not be limited to just about 10%, I would…

I would think of why I am on earth, and actually answer it.

Balloon Called Pleasure

An Apoetsbrain Original. All rights reserved © Written 15th December 2021

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It’s shine cannot be ignored. 

Big and bright. Laced in gold. 

Begging to be held and owned. 

Sparkling, distracting, exciting.

Thus you reach out in a heartbeat. 

You stretch forth to grasp it. 

Society’s Kiss

“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”

~ Susan Sontag

The Burden of Will

An Apoetsbrain Original. All rights reserved © Written 5th January 2022

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I am doing what we humans do. Just like birds perch, I am 

Standing quietly on the front porch. 

Overseeing the activities of fellow human beings. 

The man drawing on a  smoke seated beneath a weeping tree. 

The man walking his dog in his winter pajamas. 

His dog’s tail wagging aggressively. 

The street vendor playing his sales recording ceaselessly. 

The ethnic man taking a pandering walk around the neighbourhood. 

The youths moving around with the apparent burden of adulthood. 

Apoetsbrain Photography: Beautifully Dangerous

An Apoetsbrain Original © All rights reserved.

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Innocent and harmless it appears.

It seems as though it has no other care in the world but to glide and twirl across the waters.

Its every move made as though to mesmerize and hypnotize its prey.  

Its color dancing to the light pretending to be light itself.

But like a moth hopelessly drawn to a flame, 

its poison soon spreads, 

and the hug you came over to give turns to a strangle.

Soon mesmerized and breathless you fall.

The Face of God

An Apoetsbrain Original. All rights reserved © Written 21st August 2021

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We all are the very face of God.

The haughtiness in this one

The timidity in that one

The dismissiveness in this one

And the ephemeral nature of the other

These are but the face of God.

Unassuming

An original by Oluwatobilola J. Agboola. All Rights Reserved ©

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Can we mend broken pieces of trust

trampled beneath the feet of deceit?

Forgotten Lover

An Apoetsbrain Original 2011 ©

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It appears you must always be by my side

For me to think more about you.

I know I may promise  you now

That I will think about you everyday that you are away,

But we both know that is untrue.

True Laughter

Have you laughed? I mean really truly laughed.

You know the type that starts from your feet making your toes curl. That one that travels up your legs making them shake like a leaf in the wind.

That laughter that boils up in your belly like steam in an enclosed space looking for a way out. That one that literally causes you pain until you open your throat and let it all out and open.

Mainstream

Featured Poem written by Bonsu Adjei-Arthur

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‘Sometimes, our best work is done in secret’ they say

But we all crave the day the public gets a hint of ‘our base’

Several stories get lost in the universe like those star gazes

Any reason why heaven does not record the crowd but the secret places?

When My Daughter Turns Five

Featured Poem written by Joan Toluwani Amos ©

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When my first daughter turns five

‘Princess!’ I’ll call her

Unsure

An Apoetsbrain Original Written 24.11.2012

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You are beautiful yet you ask

How beautiful am I?

You are strong yet you look in the mirror thinking.

Am I strong enough?

The Crazy One Within

There is something shocking about how far this other self of mine can go.

This retarded other entity of mine has no inhibitions or limits whatsoever,

But I do, I have to posses some. The lines are clear everywhere I look.

Yet, here I am, crazy within.

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Dipped in Chocolate

“Dipped in chocolate, bronzed in elegance, enameled with grace, toasted with beauty. My Lord, she’s a black woman!”

– Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan

For We Are Now All Mad

By Sandra C. Obiora. Written 28.12.2013

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This morning it felt as though I woke up into twilight.

At some point, twilight became dawn, and dawn was no where to be found.

2022 Here We Go!

It is always such a wonder when a new year comes around. It is a marvellous thing to be alive. To be breathing, to be thinking, to be feeling, to be sane.

Things may not always be perfect but it is incredible that we have strength in our bones, shelter over our heads, and food to eat.

Looking back at 2021, we see the grace and goodness of God layered heavily on each day.

Thus, for this new year, let’s live in gratitude. Let our testimony always be

“This is a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, and a life that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. “ Amen

---

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM APOETSBRAIN UNIVERSE! IT’S A YEAR OF GRATITUDE, PEACE, AND GREAT UNENDING JOY!

Decades Come and Go

An Apoetsbrain Original © Written 31st December 2019

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As I look out my window at bleak skies,

As I feel my way through the winter chill

As I think of glories past

As I dwell on things to come.

Fly

Featured Poem written by Joan Toluwani Amos ©

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To the one with whom I share so many things in common

I See Potential

Featured Poem by Olusola Bamisile (BB). All rights reserved ©

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As I journey from one city to another in Nigeria,

And recount all the experiences embedded in every moment

Apoetsbrain Photography: The Water Dwellers

An Apoetsbrain Original © All rights reserved.

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Beautiful in their own fins and uniforms.  Swirling, gliding, socializing. Each design so unique. Unapologetic for existing and so alive. These are the usually forgotten water dwellers.

Life’s purpose

“Life’s purpose and the perfect rice cooker have similarities. A rice cooker can boil other dishes but it is bought because it is best at cooking rice besides other things it can do. There may be other rice cookers out there, yet, you bought the one you have in your kitchen because it shined to you. It just fit.

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You have been using it all this time and for years because it has been fulfilling it’s key purpose of boiling rice to your satisfaction. The rice cooker that does not know it is a rice cooker, or one that thinks it is a potato boiler will simply never be good enough. Just like this, we all shine when we know, understand, and work at our life’s purpose. Find it, focus on it, work at it.”

~ Analogy by Sandra Chukwudumebi Obiora. All rights reserved ©

Abuse & Manipulation

A Write-up by Humphery Adun 2018 ©

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Humans are relational beings; and thus, we owe our existence to the ability to cultivate relationships that sustain our mental, physical, emotional and psychological tranquility. In every relationship, there are roles played by each correspondence, and these roles are defined by several factors; age, position, class, family, culture, spirituality, and tradition. This plays out in such a way that it creates dominant and subordinate(dependent) individuals in the relationships. Interestingly, as adults we play both roles of being both dependent and dominant at the same time, across different relationships, and thus there is a diffusion of a learned trait from a relationship circle to another one; and this goes on and on, creating a tangle of relationship traits.

photography: Take me to the wild (retake)

Recently, I visited the zoo on my trip to Shanghai and came across the wild. I realized that we sometimes use the word ‘wild’ arbitrarily. When i ran into the ligers, the tigers, and the lions, i felt goosebumps spread across my skin, and my flight response kick in albeit a wall of glass between us. Welcome to the wild.

Apoetsbrain Photography: Beautifully Dangerous

An Apoetsbrain Original © All rights reserved.

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Innocent and harmless it appears.

It seems as though it has no other care in the world but to glide and twirl across the waters.

Its every move made as though to mesmerize and hypnotize its prey.  

Its color dancing to the light pretending to be light itself.

But like a moth hopelessly drawn to a flame, 

its poison soon spreads, 

and the hug you came over to give turns to a strangle.

Soon mesmerized and breathless you fall.