English

UNDER A SPELL

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

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

~ Che ~ 12 Comments

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

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

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.

SAVED BY LONELINESS

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

This morning
When I woke up
My loins were weeping
With longing for you –

Thick manly tears
Wasted on the banks of distance
The smeared silence of morning
Frustration, the fury of loneliness

Dark has been my desire
As bright as love.
Take me away
I need something stronger than hope.

That’s when my spirit spoke up.
I did not know there were so many daggers
Knifed into my back
Yet I am still alive.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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YEAR OF LOVE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Before we landed
I saw a rainbow
It came right through my window –

It curved and curved
Until its ends met one another in a circle
A rainbow circle

I shall take with me
To men on earth this rainbow
That I caught in the skies –

Reflect it shall my smile
My every word shall echo it
My every look shall project a rainbow
Into everyone who loves me back
This year. We shall unite
In a circle and, in Love, be one.
This is the year of Love.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE SIZE THAT MATTERS

~ Che ~ 5 Comments

Some people, like stars, only
Appear small because they
Are so very very far away
From us and our Understanding.

The closer we get to them
In essence and in comprehension
The smaller we become
With humility.

The more we understand them
The more we grow
In humility.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BACKTEETH OF REALITY

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

The world rotates,
A restless insomniac,
Lays on its back
Upon its bed of thorns

The bedsheets are sweating
Blood and brine
Midnight is crying for dawn.
A dream crashes to death everyday –

What laws really govern our lives?
No constitution
No legal textbook
Can capture the reasons and dynamics of living

So why don’t I stop wasting my time
With laws that terminate at death;
Seek instead for those that ever were
Ever will be.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THOSE WHOM WE LEAVE BEHIND

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

When we love, we move…
When we move, we leave someone behind –
Whatever happens to those whom we leave behind?
I have often wondered
But I truly do not know
If I will recognise them
When I meet them again in a new time.

When we love, we move…
When we move, we leave someone behind –
Whatever happens to those whom we leave behind?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

OLD YEAR BECOMES MEMORY

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Suddenly the snow came
I had waited
And watched the mountain-tops
Snow-capped

All around was a struggling winter
Asserting itself clumsily
When the skies were not blue, it drizzled

The clouds passed away
Temperature refused to fall, stood straight –

I walked deep in thought
On the Mountain, I heard the Bells
Ever and again they met in one sound
A single song. I walked up
And drove away before dawn. It did not
Snow until the airbus was about
To leave the Gate. I watched it
And recalled in my memory
The feel of snow.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE BLOG GOES ON

~ Che ~ 13 Comments

Well, dear year, you’ve come and you’ve gone, like a fleeting lover. And you’ve left behind a treasure chest of memories, clothed sometimes in layers of prose and poetry, full of promise, ribboned with a thin string of mystery.

And I’ve loved every bit of you, my maturing lovely blog. What new thoughts shall we share this year? Will the hopes be new or old? For hope, yes, hope, is wine.

I am a million unspoken intuitions and more. There is always so much to share, so much more – and so many perceptions to bear witness to.

Can a stream, running, come to rest, and still be a stream? Not in reality and not in dream. And so we’ll keep on blogging, with hearts of poetry and minds of prose – literature is our calendar, with which we mark and document our passage through time, counting one day at a time.

This year too I hope to share something everyday – maybe a classic poem, maybe a short story, maybe something else… the blog goes on.

Happy New Year.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.