You are afraid of a flower
She smiled sadly at me
My bosom blossoms for you
My thorns, they prick, I know
But love hurts the lover
And love hurts the loved
And I’m dying, I’m dying for you
Lie down in my grave with me
Let’s be reborn together.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
They shrink away instinctively
Disgustedly
From the poor
As though poverty were a disease
But even faster they
Avert their thought-sprinkled eyes
Nobody wants to see Shame
The shame mirrored within
Who is ashamed of whom?
Of what?
The rich is ashamed for being rich
The poor is ashamed for being poor
They both are ashamed of being
In the company of each other
One hopes the tides will turn
One fears the tides will turn.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I know they get in your way
They try to tell you we don’t belong together
They force you to lead a parallel existence
We’re living double lives
But behold a paradox:
In the lakes of their knowledge
You came up ignorant
In the garden of your ignorance
They found the seeds of knowledge
Who reinvented you?
Someone surely did
And it certainly wasn’t you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I see only nothing –
Emptiness has suffocated the world.
Hollowness on the inside…
Bring yourself to the fore
And stop hiding like a scared animal
In the darkness of your fear of societal assumptions.
Stop being a learned act on the stage of life –
Stop being a masquerade in the market-place of shared dreams…
Be yourself!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
The Green House
The Green Out-house
The Green Backyard
The Green Yard back –
Green green green
Green in the wind
A better world.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When your people come calling
Big Brother and all
Will you be able to resist the pressure?
Will you still be you
The You you now are?
When your people come calling
Will they assign again to you your old role
Or will you assign to everybody a new role?
Will you still be you
The You you now are?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The last was the first
It burst out of the blue dark skies
And brought light! It shone
And won our hearts, our better parts, our bitter parts
Yet it was the last.
The first was like the last
It melted away softly into wintry blues
And, oozing, seemed to reunite with windows closed
And nothing more was to be said, all appeared dead.
Yet it was the first.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
The red cloud o’er the mountain is top
Beneath is white and the mountain-cap
A bird sings just one single note
O’er and o’er by rote:
To give is to get is to give is to get
O’er and o’er and o’er again
To give is to get is to give is to get
Sans chorus and sans refrain.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When the sun comes up
You will regret the night
For the world is ruled by two strangers
And they both live in you
The night awakens one stranger
Seducer, traitor, philosopher, poet
Broken hearts heal sweet wounds
Everything is allowed
Illusion. When the sun comes up
The strangers change places
You cannot undo the night
You can only regret it
Or secretly savour the memory
Of it.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When, blinding,
The sun’s rays, binding,
The sun’s gaze, finding its way
Through a window, minding
Your business for you, a dazzling hello
Like a friend’s caring
Like a friend’s sharing a heart
You shut tight your eyes tight
A moment –
When love won’t wane, won’t dim, won’t fall
When all you get is love, love, love
You bite back the tears of incomprehension
And open wide your soul –
What your eyes can’t bear, the heart can hold
The heart will grow, the heart will grow!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 