Title: Saved by His Grace Adapted from a book by Chimezie Ihekuna (Mr. Ben) Screenwriter: Robert Sacchi
Rev Michael Xhosa’s ‘Saved By His Grace’ sermon becomes a practical test of how saved he is in Christ through the character of Dan, his son, whom he single-handledly raised when his wife, Felicia died.
Chimezie Ihekuna
Genre: Feature
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“Promoting the message of our Lord Jesus Christ to all the ends of the earth through the church, depopulating the kingdom of hell and expanding God’s kingdom on earth and speaking the Bible language as led by the spirit of God to all situations, brethren and the heathen” and “Inviting to the church the less-privileged and unbelievers, providing for their immediate needs through several welfare schemes organized by the church and all its branches and ensuring that they hear the word of God for themselves” were the respective visions and missions that Fountain of Truth stood for.
As conceptualized by the two founders, Reverend Michael Xhosa and Pastor Bode Damilola, with the former as the active front-man for the church, the church since its inception have been living up to the stated expectations.
In This Foggy Unclear Morning
In this foggy unclear morning
All seem to be hazy and smoggy
The world's covered with the white sheet
It is as it were the moon hid in one corner
And the sun tries to peep through the other
A play between light and shade
Through which we, the two loving doves
Spread the wings for the longing site
How sweet the kingfisher falling on a fish on the river
Breaks the silence of the world around
Perhaps always breaks the silence over time
How sweet the swans making love on the bank of the river!
Falling on each other in every way they need to be
In this cold winter morning I feel my warmth into the arms, O dear
On the soft touch in between us
The sun rises within enlightening the body of the earth
Every loving hand getting close together
The eyes so deep and clear
Disperse the fog as the day advances.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
21/12//2020
The New Sun
Who is sawing my heart like the woods up into logs?
The sound of cutting the musical stream
The rhythmic waves of the ocean
As goes on from the beginning
The endless journey of this water
How can you describe it in the theory of revolution?
The ever chopping sound of the woods muses the present
Striking on the strings of the past
The eyes fixed on to the light
The waves falling on
The saw cutting on
The lifelong process both in water and land
Flowing on the wings of eons always evolves the luster of the new sun.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
22/12//2020
The Death Bed
The cot made for carrying the dead body
How glistening in the light of the sun!
Just at the walking side on my way to home
My sweet home; my dears, caresses and loving tears
The bed placed on for anyone to the unknown
The love-bed, the dreamy gardens
How happy I pass my days on the ground!
This gigantic tower, the brand new materials all the year round
Our little sweet babies crying for any little sweet insistence
Forgetting all I am taken to this bed
Lying there in peace under the shady large tree
Deep in sleep
The birds and deer unveil the curtain of my eyes.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
23/12//2020
Every Day and Night
A night burned in turn the light of the day seems obscure
A day's tyranny breaks the rib bone of the silent peaceful sleep at night
The face is as it were hundred years old dilapidated home
The role we play for every day and night
What an effulgence of the sun, the cascading wave of the moon!
We are all with the petals, leaves and roots getting altogether
Flowing on the river of day and night
Feel that pain or joy in tune.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
25/12//2020
The Fragrance of Jasmine
You are my fragrance of jasmine in the moonlit night
I rush to you forever charmed in love
To the flower, to the shade
To the unknown musical rhythm
My heart beats with the pea-cock dance
Yet, why does the flower hide-away?
Why does the moon get lost in the cloud?
Water rolling into the well of my eyes
In this lifeless dark room fighting the fire
Back to my own I come over
O my jasmine, my moon
Won't my sky be filled with the shade and affection?
Laughing loud I take my breath so quicker
The sky reflects with new form of jasmine light.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
25/12//2020
Grow Up (Say It To The Mirror Remix)
Look at you wearing ocd like it's a badge of honor
Is that your latest excuse to get through life
What people are supposed to feel sorry for you and give you a break.
You know better than that by now you should realize that you
Will never amount to anything unless you make a lot of changes really fast
Out here bragging about being a criminal with your silly ass
You'll never get any bigger in the world you want because you're really trash
And not as good as you think you are
Writing all this crazy love poetry about a woman you've never met
Yeah you two had a special bond despite the distance
But instead of losing your mind over a woman
You need to sit it out have some alone time
Try to fix yourself because in your current shape
You wouldn't do anything but bring a woman down
Of course you would love them with a passion they've probably never seen before
But what about all those other sides of you that you could show them
With every single heart you can't settle for anything less than a tragedy
Such a drama king you look on the bright side and turn your nose up
What are you 41...well I'm here to tell you that you still need to grow up
Not good with the shears and snips you lay out of work
And sacrifice the money to run from the problem
So you gonna let em fire you for laying out or you gonna get every dollar possible
And make em fire you for fucking up some plants
Again you've got a lot of growing up to do
I know you don't like hearing that but I'm gonna keep saying it till you can't stand it
Till you stop and say to yourself...you know what he's right
I have a lot of growing up to do
You can't hide in your fictional worlds anymore
You just made it to the pan you never even flashed
I know this hurts but someone had to tell you
One more thing and I really didn't want to go this far
But while you're out here chasing women
Why don't you sit it out and try to fix your relationship with your children
Yeah I know that one hurt and again someone has an awful lot of growing up to do
Hate to be so tough on you...you just look like a fool the way you carry yourself
I wanna see you do better in life so you can hold your head up proudly
Best take all these words to heart
What breaks it in a different way might save you...
O Habibitiy
I am shaking as a leafless branch
Your presence is a tremendous price of rebellion,
Would tonight's rain over my unnoticed heartache?
With a drop of your kindness water, my thirst demise it.
A restrained lover is in a dream of a magnificent casket
I tried to resist winter's sun until I inferred your warm voice
The world's end is real, however, we still seek for the ark
Baghdad reveals the hanging corpses to illustrate my grief.
O habibitiy, true satisfaction can only happen once a year,
Our tongues are silent from the words of compassion
Love me with an earthy heart, and inky honey on the lips.
Montreal is the city that opens my eyes to fall in love with you.
Without any golden treasure, you love me with my sweats.
Without any colourful dreams, you love me with my bursts.
Without any valuable trophies, you adore me with my soul.
With some poems I wrote for you, I see that you are my habibility.
O habibitiy means my beloved in Arabic.
01/17/2022
Language of a Cursed Struggle
After I was evacuated from destiny’s festivity “womb”
I concede that I have to focus on improving myself
from the world's major challenges of living sufficiently.
I spread kindness among others
I serve as a good citizen of this earth
I fall in love with severe depression cluelessly.
Little stones are in my direction to walk barefoot to cure
My awareness’s become the language of a cursed struggle
I keep my decent smile in an intimate locker, swallow its keys.
Difficult times are pursuing the lightning I seek for
I serve in-between seasons on a daily battle basis
Sitting on the chair, learning to apologize for the dark sky.
Allow me to enter into your heart, and listen intently
Truthfully, I am here to relate my pain and connect with you
Take me to the calm shore, I will heal you with a wavey love.
Buried Treasure
Our devotion should not be
buried as forgotten treasure
Night abandons my torn’s past
like an empty pack of cigarettes.
The moonlight sets our dreamy sails,
as the seagulls and sea sing along
to our shoreline love.
With eyes confiding to our mouths.
We expand our love on
the spring treetops,
Rays of the summer sun
breath of your creek.
Fly me away from the bars
Let my fantasy glow with the stars
I truly love and miss you for so long
Yet, your perfume whispers a sad song.
01/15/2022
Steps To Be Orphan…
The sky is blue,
but her heart is in the severe blues.
She lives in a world of brutal humiliation
and continuous barbarity.
Your daybreak is colourful and cloudy
Her daylight is black and darker than your grief
Your dreams are the corners of the world
As for her, her dreams were crushed from her
-sleeping upon a bed of rock.
Your parents teach you how those birds fly
While the guy who raped her destroyed her revolution
As she realized that life unfairness taught her
steps to be orphan, with chains invisible on her coffin.
The four seasons of the year were her friends,
The summer sunrise whispers to her ears some of prayers
The autumn pour warm above her salty face of her crying out
The snow hides her wounds from society nonstop judgments
The spring offers her the scent she deserves to be the queen of the world.
She doesn't have a cellphone
or unreal images on social media.
Her eyes filmed what the world censor from us,
She was the seen and read stories of homelessness.
Unfortunately, her sufferings grow into a dark cloud
It grows faster than the days of your days of joblessness
With more flames of her tears burning the cages of birds
Those birds flow to heaven, while she is crossing barefoot
to the bonfire and cigarettes of another unscared rapist...
Donuts
Do they still eat donuts? It’s easy to picture it:
a squad car pulls up to the precinct or station
a cop goes in, heads immediately for the lounge
that small area that smells of the burned coffee
they all complain about but drink, and there on
the counter is the box of donuts. Might be from
Dunkin or, better, that small bakery someone’s
aunt owns or at least knows the owner. No lean
and hungry look about them, some go for jelly
others for glazed or chocolate. Don’t you recall
the pudgy policemen we’d see downtown, always
friendly, knew everyone, and always quick on
the draw when it came to donuts and burned
coffee. You have to wonder, now that you have
a moment, do they still eat donuts, like they did
back when a policeman was a familiar face and
sometimes even smiled.
Gunless
Never owned a gun, my mother said
“no son of mine…” and so I never did.
Never really bothered me either. My
Friends went off hunting and I stayed
Home in my gunless house waiting for
Their stories to unload. Missed that
Part most, the stories that guns give
A person, the hunt, the perfect shot
The pats on the back standing over
The kill, elements we knew from TV
And the movies, so many war stories
Westerns and gangsters, everyone
With a gun, toting or carrying. Knew
All the words, tough masculine stuff,
“make my day” and variations of that.
I grew up in a gunless home, never got
To clean one, load one, aim it, and then
Pull the trigger – and never shot anyone
By accident or on purpose, never stood
Over some slow-moving animal, dead
Now because I had a gun and shot it.
What's Left
On quiet evenings like this
I wait till after dinner
To drag the rubbish and
Recycling down to the end
Of the driveway.
It’s dark enough to go
Almost unnoticed
By neighbors who always
Win the race to be first
With their leavings placed
Out for others to pick through
To pick up, to take away.
We produce so much waste,
The things left over after
We live our daily lives.
We crowd, we fill, we mess
Yes, we stuff, we cram, we jam
We crowd the world with leftovers
With trash, with recycling that
Will never be recycled
With what is left over of our time
Here
We will fill it soon and then we’ll…
J. K. Durick is a retired writing teacher and online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Third Wednesday, Black Coffee Review, Kitchen Sink, Synchronized Chaos, Madswirl, Journal of Expressive Writing, Lightwood andHighland Park Poetry.
Herb tea
each afternoon
we set out our herbs
on their rack
to a spot they could finger
some sunlight.
we thought ahead;
propped open the door
with a painted blue chair
from the balcony. smells entered;
air softened, like water in cups
of herb tea. and sometimes
it was herbs, but hops
blew more often,
roasting like biscuits
in fumes rising out
of the guinness factory,
set up across
the way on the river,
which was really quite
nearby.
Where I am
inside; I’m a cell
passing protein.
my window a frame
on a bright
concrete yard.
yellow leaves climbing
the wall and distress marks,
broken through brick,
the bones of a long-
rotten pigeon coop. I own
one small fridge,
and a storage heater
and a painting
done in orange
of a tall city
landscape; dublin,
overlooking the quays.
picked up for 70 euros
in a shop on camden st
when I was last working. my teapot,
brown as old blood
and my books
are all thumbed for the first half
and forgotten. I
am a torn-up chip bag,
lying on the road,
looking at lights
in the ceiling.
My defence.
if I remember correctly,
in our two years together,
it was the first time
you’d learned
that I’d cheated.
but, in defence
of my defence:
at that point
we'd lived
different cities
for 8 months
and going longer.
in the morning
I called you,
broken as an angry
drunk's wineglass
and hungover
as a drunkard
as well. I got up – I went
to the city. took a train
and wandered london
like a bottle
on a brutal
sea.
people
were everywhere.
Water ingress.
there were storms
blowing east
from late sat
until afternoon
sunday. now the ceiling
of the entrance
to the branch
over Patrick St,
circles of stain
like a burned
dirty stove-top –
and leaks
getting through
in two places
at least. above
the main entrance
it's pooled
on the flatroof,
and through
some electrical
conduits. taking calls
monday morning
I organise contractors,
issue blanket POs
for supplies and a P1
priority. the news
of the closure
and all the redundancies
were made public there
only last friday. customers
pretty soon coming to check
on their money. this sends
the completely wrong
message, I'm told.
We'd planned on the beach
we'd planned
on the beach
for an evening
but in absence
some wind
had kicked up.
we sat in the car
in the wide
empty carpark,
drinking cold
tea from thermos,
and sandwiches meant
for the sand. the dog
was quite anxious –
had detected, I guess
the piss of dead fish
on the tideline.
I took her a minute,
hoping wind
would discourage
enthusiasm –
sand in my eyes
and the leash
in my fist
under pressure –
the atlantic a doorbell
and crouched
behind dune-piles,
pretending that no-one
was home.
.
DS Maolalai has been nominated nine times for Best of the Net and seven times for the Pushcart Prize. He has released two collections, “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden” (Encircle Press, 2016) and “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019). His third collection, “Noble Rot” is scheduled for release in April 2022.
Heaven and Hell
(Hieronymus Bosch, in scrambled haiku)
a peacock, three Eves
with four apples up on top
dark twins flank six white thighs
*
a woman torn asunder
by silver spiked saw
all breast and sinew
*
grown from fish gums
rabid incisors, dark claws
how we are hungry
Hieronymus Bosch
he is the keeper
of dead birds, their ocular
sockets oozing death
*
a man with a platypus bill
points to the words on the page
hooked crooked nose, a flashlight
*
the gourd drums,
the cockroaches
the sloped ukeleles
*
butterfly wings
salamander feet
a parade of devils
*
pterosaurs and frogs
sail through the constellations
feathers like silk, hook web flippers
*
slippery, sex stuffed with
moonlight, cock and buttock
cuffed, cucked, drowning
*
the pigment is cracking
the bonfires are crackling
the witches are cackling
Hieronymus Bosch
soot, smut, braided angels
fingers in her sex, mouth open
drowning men are swimming
*
owls, line laundry,
hooded heads and varicose veins
stingray, crab, a basket of wolverine
*
the lamb of the world
in a tunnel below the loam
the keys to death and hades in her hooves
*
sail away
sail away
sail away
*
you are the doctor
at this table, this emptied heart
these fractured bones
*
my ears and my feet
have been severed by arrows
hell's sharp blades
*
the water is green life
and your wife's skin is red
blood, trickling from struck branches
Hieronymus Bosch
a murder of crows
streaming from the crack of your ass
from his, gold coins.
*
a cauldron, an oboe,
a man vomits into a portal,
another man is born from blue.
*
three fey faces feed
on blackberries and pigs
a martyr is hogtied and stung with arrows
*
this is the house of empty barrels,
and an old and spooky widow
eyes glued to the window
*
the bridge to nowhere
the ladder to an overpass
that slides back down to earth, or hell
*
a reindeer is a centaur
a fig leaf is a burial cloth
a bovine jangles goblets and red silk
*
the gooseberry orgy, naked
circling the giant spiked fruit, mouths open,
dice, vice, stockings, and scorpions
*
the bull ruts until the woman's thighs
fall open and she cries with relief
at entry
*
Hieronymus Bosch
a nun screams at puncture
porcupine quills, claws of skunk
sex with white teeth and a mask
*
plucked bird, polka dotted fox hijab
pewter vessel of bitter water
a turtle, a crystal ball in his rubber throat
*
there are ladders across hell
the miners and their shovels
hoist volcanic ash, ashes to ashes
*
the arrow, the bullet
they are aimed at the swan
watch how her wings span death, then life
*
frail white eggs glow
among cymbals and harps
so long ago, the garden
Lorette C. Luzajic
Lorette C. Luzajic writes poetry and flash fiction inspired by visual art. Her works are widely published and nominated. She is the founder and editor of The Ekphrastic Review. She is also an internationally collected visual artist.
