English

THE SHY IN EVERYONE

~ Che ~ 13 Comments

I can show you the earth, I can show you the sky, I can show you the sea, the sun and the moon; there is nothing I cannot show you, but my heart. Yet: what is in my heart, you may wonder? And truly there are only simple things therein, little things forgotten and unforgotten – yet I shall not show it to you.

You can touch the sky if you really try; you can swim every ocean, river, sea and Lake. You can stand on the moon, you can stroke a candle-flame; but, try as you might, you still cannot touch my heart, unless I let you. Not my heart… not this little heart of mine.

Is my heart fragile? Sometimes. Is my hard adamantine? Sometimes. What is a little human heart? A mountain? A sea? A cave? A mirror? A forest of flames? What?

I can show you everything but my heart, because locked within it is a painful shyness that simply cannot bear to be seen, or touched, the wrong way, by the wrong hand, or eye, too soon, too late. It is gone. Innocence. What happened?

If I could take away the Shyness from my heart, then I could show you my heart… but then all the fun would be gone. For a heart without shyness is only a memory of a heart – and my shyness is very precious to me and my heart.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LOVE AFFAIR

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When I tasted the spliff
Dragged it down to the level
Of my hungry black lips
It was a temptation it could not resist

Heavenwards it soared
With me, its quivering
Stub, on its mind
Where I met higher thoughts.

Write down
Your poems at the height
Of your madness
For after you return

You will not remember anymore
What thoughts those were
That came to you so naturally
When you were high in love.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

A BIRD FROM AN ALIEN COUNTRY

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A girl arose from bed one morning
And heard the alien call
Of a bird
From an alien country

She looked out of her window
Saw the bird
Hovering in the air, calling…

The girl became confused
For she could strangely understand the bird’s song
And yet knew not its meaning:
The first person to trust me
Is mine…
Sang the bird.

And then the girl’s brother shed his night-gown
And flew out to meet the calling bird – the bird
From an alien country…
And the girl watched them fly away
Two identical birds
To their alien country

The first one to trust me
Is mine.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SLIPPERY

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I have seen
That Evil
Is deep

It has silenced me
For where it nests
Is the noiseless depth
Pay no attention to my words

They are a distraction
If you want to hear my message
Listen to my silence
My words will show you the way into my silence
Where I talk of treachery no words can describe.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MOUNTAINS LIQUID, MOUNTAINS LUMINOUS

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Peoples of different origins
Colonised my heart
And raised therein an edifice
Of loneliness
And treasured dreams…

Look now at the liquid mountains
Luminous and eternal
Which have become my spirit’s
Backbone
Liquid mountains of moving light…

When I say I love you
I mean it…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
When I say I love you
I mean it…

Inside each liquid mountain
Within each luminous elevation
Is a heart
Of gold, of fire, of love…

So love me forever, my dear.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

DYING STARS

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In our hearts we feel it sometimes, we know it fullwell, even when we deny the feeling to everybody, including ourselves and our best friends, yet we know: the star is dying…

There you see it, in the spiritual firmaments of the decaying soul. It used to be a bright star, friendly and confident, and pure as miraculous crystal. Once, it shone and sparkled, twinkled and flared and brightly laughed like a flaming eye in the skyscapes of who you truly are… in the skylines of your sensitivity and consciousness.

What is that song which just faded out? It was not any ordinary song, nay. It was the star that lived, and died…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE RAY

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When a flower blossoms
We know
That it has been touched by
The ray

When a woman blossoms
We know
That she has been touched by
The ray

The beautiful ray.

When a writer is touched by
The ray
The whole world blossoms.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MAGICAL MOMENT

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If we could see the future, what would be its past?

If we could see the future, would we change the present?
And would we then see the new future that arises out of that?

If we could see the future, would it still be the future,
or would we have turned it into the past?

And what would the future then be?

I guess we can never really see the future…
The present is the future.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BIRDS AND SONGS OF FALKENSTEIN

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Catch the song
Of the bird
And sing it with a human voice
And the bird
Is yours –

Catch the songbird
And cage it in your house,
Yet you have it not,
Neither bird nor song –

Love your woman
For what she is
And she will always treasure you
Very specially
Inside her heart and home…

This was the song
That pierced my being
As we stood upon the peak
Of Falkenstein.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BRINK

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The world is changing under your watch
There is hatred abroad, fear is at home
Never was it easier to manipulate the future
Crowds of boomerangs are rushing out of the past
Back to the present

When events take this turn, sharply
When all the resentments flower
When cultivated prejudices become seasoned culture
All that’s needed is a reason, a trigger, a spark
There is no hiding place

Everyone has got a grudge to prove
The dark hearts will plunge the world into chaos
And watch the good people tear themselves to pieces
– Who will rise above their shadow
And solve a paradox?

Everybody has been aching for the final conflict
Woe betide us
When it finally comes upon us.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.