Look not too far
In search of what is gone
Because what was
Is what will be
In me is the fire and the power
The rock, the stone, the adamantium
Is inside the heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
English
THE AWAKENING
How many times will I awaken?
How many sleeps do I sleep?
How many dawns lie still between this dawn
And the final sunrise?
Night has encapsuled night has encapsuled night has
Encapsuled night over and again night has encapsuled
Night over and over and over again…
Out of night
We awaken, and dawn
Is again the night that precedes
Another dawn, another night, another awakening
Lies on the other side of me…
I awaken –
Aye, I awaken…
Mantles of night, descending
Flames of light, ascending –
There is a last boundary where we touch
One more time
And then touch no more…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
AGAIN
Faces of strangers
Phases of enmity
A look is fuller than a book
Brevity is the soul of it
Hatred is a virus
It lies low for generations
Then breaks out with the new youth
Like a message stored in the DNA
Unbroken.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
AFTER PAIN
And after pain comes joy
If you let the pain have its way
And yet you conquered it
And after pain comes love
If the pain washes you truly clean
And yet you conquered it
And after pain comes life
If you walked hand in hand with pain
And conquered it
Your pain is not stronger than you
You are stronger than it
That is why it tries so hard to hurt you
A little
Because it will not last long
Wait a little longer, baby
Just a little –
Pain is our bridge.
Do you see the morningland
Waving in the distance?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ALL THE THINGS THAT THE WORDS DO NOT SAY
I wish I were a painter, to draw the pictures and paint the concepts that words cannot hold – my words. I believe there are greater poets now and ever, better writers, greater wordists, because I’ve tried and tried but still I’ve not succeeded in telling you what I know. I cannot form it in words, I cannot form it in thoughts, I just know it and understand that it is the world of things which the words have never said.
You cannot tell a woman that you love her. The moment you say it, it is gone. You can tell a man the truth, but you cannot tell him what the truth is – only he must find it out for himself one day. You cannot describe beauty in words. Even the beauty of a beautiful poem cannot be put into poetry again. You did it without thinking – and the moment you started thinking, you did not see it again.
Think a little – little thoughts…
A picture is still worth a thousand and one words. A woman wounded me mortally, yet try as I did, I could not explain in words what she did, and yet I know it Clearly.
You can never change anybody but yourself, because you are the one person to whom you can speak without words, always. And once there is truth, then there is nothing more to say. You can only say the truth, my brother, but you cannot make anybody understand. But, take heart… silence teaches the last lesson finally finally finally finally.
All the things that the words do not say, silence says always.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
HAWKSHEAD
If Heart could speak on its own
Without Brain as translator
Spoke its Intuition alone
Unmindful of intellect, that imitator
What startling things, yet unknown
Would fill the world’s books?
What silent waters, from their deep zone
Would rise as bubbling brooks?
If there were Child in Adult
Awake, seeing, hearing, speaking
If adults would spare themselves the insult
Of hiding the child they in themselves are keeping
How different every day would feel
Refreshing, natural
With the adult balancing the child’s zeal
And the child making the adult more natural…
Youth, so important
Magic Time between two times
Child and adult merge concordant
Complementing each other like natural rhymes –
What you are in your youth is what you’ll be forever
Deep within your heart –
The heart speaks its mind but once, and never
Again from that path will depart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije (Poems inspired by the Lake District)
ATOP CASTLERIGG
It must have been on Castlerigg
Amidst the ancient stones
My spirit suddenly grew big –
Did I sense my old bones?
I felt that here within this circle
I have married you before
What some might call insensible
Or, being kind, a lore…
Why do I feel what I feel?
Your eyes tell me it’s real…
If you agree with me, then nothing else matters
Sacred are family matters –
I still see Castlerigg
The heart of a mighty circle
Of mountainous hills wise and big
Like a prototype stone circle
Built by Substantiate Beings
That walked the earth
Long before Human Beings
First came to birth.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije (Poems Inspired by the Lake District)
UNDER A SPELL
When all is sad and done
Truth lies on you clumsily
Against you it’s all mad up
Love hates you so badly
In hell you’re in heaven
Mine eyes have sin it all
Cut up in the rupture
In the mist of my foes
True friends are had to find
Every day a new stat
Just role with the blow
Role with the blow, stranger
Not even a manger protects from danger
When people know you can see their soul
They mind.
So read your friends with fear
Your foes with care
The ability is rare.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
PS: there are no spelling errors in this poem.
PARADISE IS HIDDEN BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW
Do not go too fast, do not go too slow, nor stop, nor stop to look back, nor look back, nor go back – walk on at a steady pace. Paradise is hidden between yesterday and tomorrow.
Do not love too far, do not love too near, love as you walk, walk as you love, forward calmly, forward calmly, nor be afraid of heartbreak. Paradise is hidden between yesterday and tomorrow.
Do not dream too much, do not dream too little, do not trust too quickly, do not trust too late, do not work too hard, do not work too soft, do not cry during the day, do not laugh in anybody’s face, do not expect that those whom you love also love you, do not expect that those whom you understand also understand you, do not assume that those whom you see not also do not see you, do not assume that those whom you love not also do not love you.
It is in your heart today, it is in your hands today. Forget the past, son, forgive everyone who ever hurt you, nor dream alone of goodness only in the future – Paradise is hidden between yesterday and tomorrow.
The person who loves you the most is the last person you would think of. Love me, dear, please love me dear. Paradise is hidden between yesterday and tomorrow. And if we let it slip away today, we will not and never find it again tomorrow, but will walk on lonely again, like yesterday.
If you love me like I know you do, please hold my hand forever.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
PURELY, IT IS A MATTER OF LOVE
The dance of the woman in the market
Unloosed poetry
Here it goes, there she flows
Away…
Again I was baffled
Again I was moved
And asked myself one another time:
How many rivers
Meander within one woman?
The things that men desire in women
Are nothing compared to the things
Which women only know in their silent, sleeping heart
That they can give…
And, purely, it was something
That was in paradise on the day
That you and I were born
Children of the rose
Children of love.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 