Mission Impossible: 50 Poems!

Mission Impossible 1

Is it possible to have faith and not hope?
Is it possible to have the wood and not the trees?
Is it possible to have a phrase and not the letters?
Is it possible to find rhythm and not poetics?
Is it possible to change without the stages of pain?
Is it possible to find one’s bearings and not direction?
Is it possible to feel the heart of Africa and not the heat?
Is it possible to be the giant of Africa and not Nigeria?



Mission Impossible 2

With love and strength and faith,
We stand a glorified race.
One people running one race
Skipping hurdles of differences,
Taking turns, passing the baton,
Thriving on a frame of reference
That’s as solid as rock.
We found our moment of grace,
With love and strength and faith.



Mission Impossible 3

Moments as brief as summer’s fun
Birth experiences that ousts the sun.
This is the day the world calls your own
And brings on the transport of drum rolls.
Have fun.
Explore all your heart’s desire.
Erupt!
And break out like forest fires.



Mission Impossible 4

We have nothing to prove to anybody,
The resounding victories are proof enough.
History’s records have the details you need.
We lost some battles but achieved much more.
Through it all we have learned to trust in love.
So, you can either march on with us or
Watch as we recapture the troves we lost.



Mission Impossible 5

This is where the sun sets.
This is where it musters strength
To run its successive course around the world;
Nigeria, the land of ten thousand suns.
This is the power house of Africa.
This is the point of new beginnings.
We hold out hope to the race of man
And by that simple act, we find the items of peace.



Mission Impossible 6

What is a miracle?
Is it God’s answers to our deepest needs?
Is it the thousand and one things that baffle logic?
Or is it you taking the vibes in your stride,
Daring every gale like a child’s kite?



Mission Impossible 7

In a time of remembering,
When the deep beckons the deep,
An echo rings through all hearts,
Naming the many faceless parts.
Desire finds his vehicle
And we, trembling, await the miracle.



Mission Impossible 8

It means a lot more to me
Than scribbled representations could minutely
Present in a snapshot of verse.
It’s like the soothing whisper of a lover
Conveyed on the notes of a jazz instrumental.
The splendor of your grace is a fragrance
Ushered into eminence by poetic overtones.

The jade of your forests,
The tan parches of your wilderness,
The scorch of your sunshine,
The pensive emerald of your lagoons,
And the rustic exquisiteness of your ranches
Makes you special in a style
That could only compare to you.



Mission Impossible 9

Memories have a certain way with heroes.
Memories: stunning pictures of yesterday,
Distant realities inhumed in our marrows,
Come thumping thro the dusts of time bringing
Strips of film of battles and conquests past.
Opening this child’s eyes to see the glories,
The struggles and the triumphs that creased our path.
Our grandmothers and grandfathers, hopes fired
Like clay blocks dashed for the mark of the prize.
We came into ripeness of their desire.
Yet, memory like a faithful watchdog fights
To keep labors of heroes past alive.
And as we stand to remember, we ask
That we forget not till we breathe our last.



Mission Impossible 10

They say time keeps a record of the days of our lives,
Scrawling our moments in his journals line after line.
They say our past transits to live in another place
Raising questions of Karmas and Abikus and fate.
They say the travel of a lifetime hides in a step
And incite temperaments restless for change in men.
Then they say, opportunity calls but once then it’s bye, bye.
This Land’s defied all odds, so whoever said that . . . They lied!



Mission Impossible 11

You cannot begin to count the travails,
Seasons bathed in doubt storms,
The perils and tortures of endless night,
That accompanied our spot in this world.
What we have gained surpasses a dream
And beats the life out of a fantasy.
But we have it and know how we got here.
That is all that matters and nothing else.



Mission Impossible 12

To whom honor is due,
I come to pay my dues.
To whom tribute is deserving
I present a rack of trophies.
To home and country;
For the privilege I call family.
To the differences which make us peculiar,
To the similarities for which we’re spectacular.
I raise my glass to a new beginning:
Here’s to a golden anniversary.



Mission Impossible 13

Nightmares and dreamscapes,
Requiems for cursed days.
From eternal chasms of loss
To the silent minutes after,
The ship of this nation’s been rocked
And hauled to rip asunder.
Our hay days pronounced the pain.
How we did thrive in waste
Is the miracle
That bonds us as one people.



Mission Impossible 14

It’s like catching the rays of the sun
With your face on a rather dull day
And riding the strength that surges through.

It’s like running a mile and picking
An overdose of second wind
And cruising to the heart of the moon.

Knowing you, knowing your name, your fame,
Knowing your ups and downs and your gains,
Is to live where the sun is always blue.



Mission Impossible 15

Butterfly!
You are my butterfly!
The military juntas,
The dramas of existence,
The various bounty hunters.
You took all in your stride to prominence.
Your metamorphosis is a note of memory.
And the joy it gives to celebrate your anniversary!



Mission Impossible 16

Sometimes, our inner selves only find
Expression in praise of one of great esteem.
Collecting akin fragments of dream till it combines
In the face of a portrait that’s indeed a masterpiece.
At such times our creativeness answers only
To the pulses of our heart’s response,
To the spur of the moment.
And as we accept the urgent instance,
We truly live in the magical minute.

As I write for you, my writing dons a facade
There’s a worth in the seconds composing my days.
I value the verity that I can scribble for you,
That I can author a verse so eternally true.



Mission Impossible 17

Some things cannot linger.
Like the certainty of sunrise at dawn,
Like a tune at the tip of the tongue,
Like the soul connecting distant destinies,
Like the eyes of the beholder set on beauty.

Some things must not linger.
Like me wanting to ravel you,
Wanting the whole world to know you
Through and through.



Mission Impossible 18

It’s been a journey worth talking about,
A trek that ought to go the rounds.
For fifty some years tho, the tremors
Rippled the brass tacks of our faith,
The vehicle of unity conveyed us across board.
We found unity in adversity and grace
To commensurate the journey thro the pain.
It’s been a privilege to partake of that walk,
And tons of fun to champion this talk.
A legend is fifty and growing strong.



Mission Impossible 19

Feeling is ripe.
The mood is right.
Candor sets the time,
As emotions ignite.
Peals of laughter
Crackle like burning embers.
Celebration is the air.
Jubilation is in the air.



Mission Impossible 20

We have stumbled upon a revelation;
A diagram of a great nation.
Her peoples are seedlings of a future
Bristling with the voices of choice and change.
This is what the whole world has been waiting for,
A day like no other when faith is a geographic place.



Mission Impossible 21

In pleasant dwelling places,
Sequined soulful tunes splinter secret silences.
Strokes from setting suns painting sacred scenes.
Shadows of evenings wake on midday screams
As destinies intertwine in vital breathing spaces.
Immutable properties alter the course of history.
Progenies of the Niger carve a niche
And nestle in a pride of place none can breach.



Mission Impossible 22

The little foxes
Have plagued our vines
For years in a time.
We made choices,
Many of them destructive,
But some of these broadened oue perspectives.
Helping us grow strong.
As we get along,
Obstacles answer to every step.
We must proceed with measured breath.



Mission Impossible 23

The rage of posterity is blowing.
Turning the pages of history,
Bringing instruction to the listening ear.
While most nations are busy splitting hairs,
A nation of millions works swiftly
To perfect a resurrection theory.
Constructing a mountain of man
From a handful anthills of the Savannah.



Mission Impossible 24

We sauntered thro the eyes of a needle,
We managed to maintain that suave,
And tho we lost some to the scuffle,
Fame’s hall has a plaque dotting our name.



Mission Impossible 25

Argument is flimsy against proof.
Fickle, as pensioners of Morpheus Train.
Experience produces depth as blue skies
Are tangible statements for better days.
We stand on the plains of promises
And claim the length and breadth as ours.
All our tomorrows are bursting at the seams,
Here we stand only counting the hours.



Mission Impossible 26

Nothing can totally compare
With the beauty of your name.
So many have tried to ravel
Its secrets by weaving in details.
But even that would not suffice.
Your name is like tropical sunrise
Splashing a dash of orange on a black nation.
Like a trellis supporting promises
Of better days for a youth nation.



Mission Impossible 27

Deep within the confines of my heart
Hope springs still, you can almost hear it flutter.
I believe in the Nigerian dream.
My reasons confound mathematical analysis.
The thumps of my heart stamp this declaration,
A deed, signed and sealed to honor a notion.
Nigeria is a people that will go on,
A glider skillfully riding its storm.



Mission Impossible 28

Today, tomorrow and the day after,
A river flows and its currents gather
Aspirations of a rising giant.
Stacking them neatly like logs of timber.
Adrenalin is pumping, hopes are high,
A young glues her feet to the starting line.
All purposes are one as the rushing waters
Digging for that one piece of the puzzle,
Till we bind all our essences together
And simply put to rest every hassle.
Today, we make a decision to stand,
Tomorrow, we run to defend the stand,
The days after, we’ll claim the pedestal.



Mission Impossible 29

We, the people of a mighty state
Entwine our hearts in a three-fold chord,
Eyes lifted to search the horizon.
As we await, with hope, the rising sun,
We recount our blessings and give thanks.
We have arrived on the shores of hope
And with the sands of time, we build new plans
And watch our dreams take flight and claim earth’s orb.



Mission Impossible 30

A ring of beauty
Surrounds the tapestry of yesterday.
As we remember the victories
We embrace the arrival of today.
There’s a feeling in the air
It overwhelms doubt and fear.
It’s a feeling that we can go on,
That change waits for us
We only need to push forward
And take the horrors off our minds,
Save our strength to take that step across the line.



Mission Impossible 31

In these parts of the universe,
Whenever we chance the month of October,
It rolls in on the peals of thunder.
A genesis was conceived fifty years before.
Many a days, weeks, months, years bear record.
There’s a resonance of jubilation.
Slivers of joy weave a dance to the notion.
It’s the dawn of great expectations,
Of unconnected paths but one destination.



Mission Impossible 32

Sir Balewa called it ‘Quiet Dignity’,
But there’s nothing quiet about a second coming.
Today, as we step on center stage
And the universes bow at our feet;
We rip the silences of history’s huts
And scream triumph’s throes down its throat.
We are black. We are proud.
And there’s none other way but say it loud!



Mission Impossible 33

Stolen mysteries
Wake and break upon our horizons.
We are witnessing tangible reveries
And our faculties spill out in raw emotions.
We cannot fight it.
There are few things men can’t successfully conceal,
One is untainted joy rooted in accomplishing.
It’s like trying to ignore solar rays piercing your eyeballs.
We have agonized and felt inevitable birth pangs.
Time’s sands are streaked by the footprints of our struggles.
Today, we announce our victories with a bang!
A phoenix splinters surface of the ashes of his rubbles.



Mission Impossible 34

I feel another breeze,
An association with delights.
I feel my senses freed
To explore details of what lies
Beneath the makings of history.
And I am willing.
I yield explicitly.
To know you, Nigeria,
To sing the praise of your name,
And come to taste of your aura,
And be thrilled by the rise of your fame.

I feel another breeze.
I know the definition of release.
I rise on effects of euphoria,
And it feels real good to be Nigerian.



Mission Impossible 35

Time is heard on distant hills
As it echoes tales that peel the heavens.
The universe stands still
At the mention of the name.
Heroes past voiced glories of the same.
Now the time has finally come,
When a young generation takes that baton
And runs with it
To uphold her honor and sovereignty,
And verse intimations of her immortality.



Mission Impossible 36

What is the measure of life?
Is it to live or die for home and country?
Is it to throw in my all when we ride
And watch gales of laughter weave
Our essences in knots of harmony?
What is the measure of life?
But the moments that lift the thrust of our flight?
The seconds that show us who we really are,
The instances that reveal where our loyalty lies.



Mission Impossible 37

A hero stands.
His heart does not falter
At the appearance of storms,
Cos he’s been thro it before.
He knows the ropes and invokes skill at every turn.
He’s like a poet who has mastered metaphor,
He is trained in the principal of reverse.
For a hero is he who has fought and lost 10,000 times;
He is that one who would rather throw in his all
Than consent to defeat, lay back and die.
A hero keeps on tryin and tryin and tryin
Until he chances the golden anniversary of victories.



Mission Impossible 38

Those things I used to hate about you,
Have come to be those that define you,
Ugly shades sown in threads of mystery.
You have indeed thrived above your misery.
There’s no doubt about it, you have won.
After fifty bumpy years, you are still One
Indivisible, multi-cultured, black nation.



Mission Impossible 39

The truth we seek
Often lie in conflict with opinion.
Our questionings and objections may collide
On impact with the message of the clarion,
Rousing us from childish comforts of our sleep
Into daylight that runs deep like still streams.
The answer we seek is in the wind of our change;
Our anniversary is premise on which to build a new state.



Mission Impossible 40

Distance has an enchantment
Rivaled only by the plots of a fairytale.
All who judge you from afar
Were barely lucky to glimpse the comet’s tail.



Mission Impossible 41

I find it a continuing privilege
To be called by your name,
To be tied to your ancestral strings
And be revived under your shades.
Hopes of dead heroes and sheroes
Come shouting from another place.
I wasn’t there to hoist the first flag,
I rise now to erase that fact!



Mission Impossible 42

Hell ride
That phrase defines our travails.
Affection shed in the night time,
Gropings in darkness in broad day.
We sure have tales to tell.
Sheets of joys and laughters,
Of downs and defeats as well.
We all ought to be mad and bitter.
But here’s the truth we uncovered
From beneath the piles of rubble:
We, the people, are better together.



Mission Impossible 43

We beat our tracks back to the highway
And find intimations of privileges come to play.
In the scheme of things, an atom of hope is pivotal,
Like a band of metaphors strapped to a verse of poetry.
A hundred million destinies marinate in the cauldron.
The pleadings of urgency wake the cries of the dawn.
Tomorrow hurries up, with pregnant clouds, bringing sheaves.
A million seeds arise to take the lead and will achieve.



Mission Impossible 44

Why would anybody snatch a school bus?
Unless the architects are psychos, of course.
Why go so far to hurt a baby’s smile
In a time the nation ought to unite?
But we have survived worse things.
And this setback will only make us multiply.
Yes, we will make it thro this,
And the world will see that still we rise.



Mission Impossible 45

Silence of stolen voices
Beg the national question.
Evil taunts remembrance of liberty,
Dredging up a can of past transgressions.
Clouds of stench assault us with a sense
Of shame we can neither den nor hide.
Gloom stalks us in his wakefulness,
Reminding us we’ve been living a lie.
Is this the ‘promise of the rust’?
Cos if it is, it aint such fun.
We have waited in vain
And indeed deserve the shame.



Mission Impossible 46

When I shout, Nigeria!,
I am not government-praising.
When I say, we have arrived,
It’s got nothing to do with politricks.
When I state how we survived,
I am talking the individual.
It is never about the government.
The people are a nation’s vineyard,
The greatest constitutions are unwritten.
Like the code syncing rhythms of our heartbeats,
Or the affection that unites a family.
We, the people, are the constitution.
We are the cause for celebration.



Mission Impossible 47

Kites of hope are daring the storms,
Lovin’ feelin’ is catching like a virus.
Ships of promises drop anchor on our shores
Doubtless, bringing sheaves fo our father’s toil.
Chains of heroics link our ancestry knot to knot
Shattering clouds of ill that blur our vision.
We press in the strides of our marathon,
Clogging the gap with faith that pelts like rock.
We are a people that will march on.
A nation that will thrive with passion.



Mission Impossible 48

The past tears came upon a nightmare scream,
As horrific as a scar-face crime scene.
Some over-exposed it like a strip of film
And flung mud on fabrics of a great dream.
Now a black phoenix rises from ashes,
Pounces on Zephyr to glimpse fantasies,
Soon-to-be tapestry of our realities.
Galleries of fabled feats mark our bush track:
Fallen legends and rising heroes,
Pungent pointers to a stifled maelstrom.



Mission Impossible 49

You may take all the time you want
Find yourself a rattan and pull it to the front.
Set yourself up and hear me spin my metaphors.
Know, beyond doubt’s shadow that the least of these
Are true acts of courage that will go down in history.

Give me your hand, let me walk you thro corridors
Of wrenching pain refined by the fires of valor.
Listen closely as I whisper oracles of a future
Untouched by fear, of a people toppling boundaries.
And acknowledge that these must go down in history.

A nation of millions seeks new beginnings,
Marching in time to a democratic Valhalla.
Unity binds us up and defines our entities
And we, like unfolding promises take a stand.
Bet you see distinctly, why this is going down in history.

For half a century, this family chose to hang on.
Plowing the turbulence and staying on course,
We found a voice of our own in an unsettling world.
It takes a hero’s heart to take risks and succeed,
And now, you know why these events must go down in history!



Mission Impossible 50

We have quietly achieved our Midas years,
We, trigger of a black revolution,
Accede the plains of a tumultuous pyramid
To find the base for a new resolution.
There were times, and those were tough times,
We underestimated the impossible.
Standing in this place, we can say with courage, we rise!
For we’re still one nation on a mission falsely called, impossible.