Mark Ejaka
Biography: A Nigerian poet and storyteller whose work celebrates African heritage, cultural rhythms, and the human spirit, exploring forgotten histories and decolonization through poetry and digital storytelling
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Mark Ejaka
Wednesday 12 November 2025

No Place to Run (A Cry for Benue)

 

No place to run, no place to hide,

This soil is ours—our tears, our pride.

In fields once green, now red with pain,

We stand for peace, through blood and rain.



This is our home, where fathers fell,

Where mothers knelt, too weak to yell.

We till the earth with weary hands,

But still, we rise to guard these lands.

I will not flee, I will not bend,



My heart, my strength, I will defend.

For every child with frightened eyes,

I lift my voice to drown the cries.

O Benue, land of yam and grain,

How long must you endure this pain?

Let swords be turned to farmer’s plough,

Let peace be more than just a vow.



So here I stand, through flame and flood,

To end this tale of spilled-out blood.

With sweat and soul, I make this vow

This is our home. We fight. We plough.



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Mark Ejaka
Wednesday 12 November 2025

Child Soldier's Lullaby


Hush now, little one, don't cry
The gun is heavier than your father's hoe.
I learned to load it before I learned to read,
My ABCs spelled in bullet casings.
At night, I dream of school uniforms,
White shirts starched with hope.
But dawn brings the smell of gunpowder, 
And another day of borrowed childhood.


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Mark Ejaka
Wednesday 12 November 2025

The Politician's Visit

He came in a convoy of white jeeps,
Windows tinted like his promises.
Cameras flashed as he hugged a crying child
The same child who would sleep hungry that night.
He left behind a bag of rice and a speech about
peace,
Both gone bad before the sun set.
The road he traveled is now a grave for dreams,
Paved with the potholes of forgotten pledges.



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Mark Ejaka
Wednesday 12 November 2025

A Letter to Abuja


We have written our pain in blood and dust,
But who in Abuja reads our trust?
Our laws are torn, our pleas unheard,
We trade our lives for hollow words.
Still, in Benue’s heart we stand,
Our hope a banner, not a brand.
If justice sleeps, we’ll wake it soon,
With hoe and song beneath the moon.


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Mark Ejaka
Wednesday 12 November 2025

Exiles in Our Own Land: A Lament for Benue's IDPs

 

In the cradle of Benue's fertile embrace,

Where ancestors whispered through yam vines and

maize,

Homes stood like elders, rooted and wise,

Under the watchful gaze of harmattan skies.

But shadows descended with fire and blade,

Herds trampled dreams in the raids they made.

Fathers fell guarding the soil they tilled,

Mothers fled clutching the seeds unspilled.

From Guma's plains to Agatu's shore,

The river weeps for the lives torn before.

Villages emptied, like ghosts in the night,

Echoes of laughter lost to the fight.

Now tents rise like strangers in crowded despair,

IDP camps—foreign fields of thin air.

Canvas walls whisper of lands left behind,

Where the hoe met the earth in rhythms defined. 

Children play in the dust, eyes hollow and wide,

Dreaming of farms where their futures reside.

Elders sit silent, mapping memories' trails,

Of ancestral graves and the stories they hail.

Food comes in rations, hope in fleeting aid,

Yet spirits endure, though the heart is afraid.

We are nomads at home, displaced in our vein,

Benue's blood scattered, but unbroken chain.

One day the call will summon us back,

To rebuild the hearths from the ashes' black.

For the land remembers, it waits in the rain, 

To welcome its children, to heal once again. 

O camps of exile, you hold but our shells, 

Our souls roam the valleys, the rivers, the fells. 

We left not by choice, but by fate's cruel hand, 

Yet we'll return, reclaim our stolen land.



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Mark Ejaka
Wednesday 12 November 2025

THE WEIGHT BEHIND THE SMILE

There was a time, not long ago,

When laughter bloomed with gentle glow

No need to pose, no need to try,

Each smile lit up like summer sky.


We danced through days with muddy feet,

Chasing dreams down childhood streets,

No bills to pay, no masks to wear,

Just joy and wind in tousled hair.


But now the world has grown so wide,

And we must learn to smile and hide

At desks, in crowds, through restless nights,

We dim our truth beneath the lights.


The lips still curve, the eyes still gleam,

But joy now feels like just a dream.

We grin through meetings, choke down pain,

And walk through sun, but feel the rain.


Oh, to go back if just a while,

To where each laugh was free of guile,

Where hearts were light, and love was loud,

Before the world taught us the shroud.


Yet here we are, and onward still,

With silent strength and iron will.

We fake the smile, but deep inside,

A child remains, who never lied.





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Mark Ejaka
Wednesday 12 November 2025

THE TWINS OF CALABAR

They said our mothers were cursed with two,

That heaven frowned when twins were due,

That thunder spoke and spirits cried,

So babes were left where angels died.


But truth was buried in a foreign tongue,

By men who came with cross and gun,

They called our customs dark and wild,

Yet never saw the heart  the child.


In Calabar, where rivers gleam,

Twin laughter once was not a dream,

They lived, they played beneath the sun,

Till whispers turned the hearts of some.


The strangers wrote our tale in shame,

Called love a sin, and life a blame,

They built their myths on broken cries,

And crowned themselves with holy lies.


But truth returns through time and flame,

The mothers rise and call their names,

Their voices echo through the years 

No curse was there, only tears.


Now we sing for those unborn,

For every twin the world had scorned,

Calabar heals, her truth reborn 

The lie is dead, the dawn is sworn.



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Mark Ejaka
Wednesday 12 November 2025

Shadows over Benue.

The sun still rises over hills,

But fear walks first through farms and mills.

The market stalls are half-abandoned,

Eyes scan roads once taken for granted.

In Guma's fields and Logo's plains,

Hope withers under unmarked chains.

A knock at night, a sudden sound

Each heartbeat pounds like war drums now.

Children learn to run before they read,

Mothers pray more than they feed.

Men who once knew soil and sweat,

Now know the grip of silent threats.

We speak in whispers, guard our doors,

No one's sure what fate still stores.

Strangers pass and are not named,

Familiar faces now feel strange.

The herds still roam, the borders blur,

Justice sleeps, its conscience slurred.

Who holds the gun, who draws the map?

Who profits from the farmer's trap?

But still, within each broken fence,

A seed survives, a stubborn sense

That peace is more than just a word

It's action loud, not silence heard.

Benue bleeds but will not fade,

Its spirit carved in hoe and blade.

One day these hills will sing again

Not of loss, but of regained reign.



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