From a desk,
Wooden, yet concrete with words
From the proverbs.
I, a preacher who seeks to broaden you,
Send these scripts to you.
To you who enjoy the spoils of war,
Who think you can only derive your desires from the blood spilling of the cup of people; I write these scripts.
May your conscience,
Eat you up like the Earth feeds off the skin of those dead by your dreams.
For!
From the Preacher’s Desk
I write these scripts of War and its vanity
That Peace is the only weapon of Peace.
To you ebony skin,
With an African soul,
Yet your mind speaks of a new life
Away from your original self-
From the Preacher’s Desk,
I write these scripts of Africa and her stray Children.
I beckon you to come back.
For she waits down the Negro hill.
—To you,
Who think with the head leaving the heart
Hanging like a ceiling fan.
From the Preacher’s Desk,
I write these scripts of pain
For the loss of sense of humanity
And the sidelining of morality.
—To you,
Who let desire for power,
Overwhelm the cries of the masses;
From the Preacher’s Desk,
I write these scripts
To let your conscience preach to you
On what Leadership is.
Then you might realize that the masses are the power
And your duty you have neglected for the taste of sweet champagne of authority.
From the desk of a Black Preacher,
I write these scripts.
(An excerpt from the poetry collection “From The Preacher’s Desk” by Arnee Akpan)