It must be hard for you
To be the subject
– or is it the object?
or is it the heart? –
Of so many poems.
When you stumble, remember:
I love you and you love me
Even if there be no poems
Even if there be no songs
No mountains, no photos, no words…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Our dreams do not die, but when we misinterpret them, we make fools of ourselves. Big fools. But it is love again that maketh the biggest fools of us all, especially of poets and dreamers.
I dream my dreams, I write my poems, but still the nearest I come to the love in my heart are these words on paper that I write. And it is not me that you love, but my poetry. And fools continue to dream and poets continue to write love-poems and I continue to change.
But I do not believe the myth, oh no. The younger you are, I know, the deeper you love. Love does not make fools of youths, only of adults.
My chest hurts. It is cold somewhere strange and far…
How really good are the things I write? If you knew the amount of pain and loneliness, the pressure of gleaned recognition, the deep sorrow under which I write them down, my friend, you would read them gently and tenderly and with a thought for all those who labour away but are called fools and dreamers by those for whom they also write. Aye, if you knew the pain mingled with the ink which write these lines, you would weep for everybody on earth and beyond.
But do not cry for me… when I write, I shed my pain.
But she never goes away, my love, like a deer. She is only shy and a little wary of strange men, and all men are strange. I’ve been to many places, but no place ever confounded me quite like the heart of the woman I love. It was a room of mirrors and all I see was myself everywhere. But so would everybody else too who found their way into her – and yet her heart does not lie. It only reflects the truth. So I got mad and smashed her heart… and – what do you know? – instead of hating me for causing her pain, she loved me fiercely for freeing her from her loneliness and fear.
Poets seek love – and find poems…
Fools seek love – and find dreams…
Seekers seek truth – and find love…
Love and poets, fools, dreams and seekers.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Friends are true friends when they will not go away from you in search of something which they merely sense that you can give them; and they can wait a thousand years for you, because they simply love you.
Castles are places where those who have love can live without guilt, and those who have no love cannot live without guilt, because every castle is an amalgamation of the qualities of the souls that inhabit it. Castles breathe.
Lakes, although they treasure a mystery, will only show you your own face, and if you must know what lies inside the heart, then you must break through the face on the surface of the lake. Lakes speak never.
Mountains are mighty until you have conquered them… and then they become mightier than ever, each mount, but now you know why it stands there, because you have crowned it. Even after you die, the mountain will remember those who crowned him once, and forever; and when you return again, he will whisper your name not once, but thrice… mountains live forever in my heart. You are my heart, sweet woman.
Friends and castles, lakes, mountains and mysteries.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The years have raced by
Yet our story is not begun
Two hearts cannot cry
Without reason, and upon
My heart I see the snowclad valley again
The mist, the promise, the joy and the pain
And I know it simply
Surely and firm
Our river runs deeply
Unbroken, fullterm
Be not afraid to follow yon distant star
Until you love me, you won’t know who you are.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There she perches, haunted…
The ruins of a castle once loved;
Haunted by love…
There she perches, haunted…
The ruins of a castle once loved;
Haunted by love…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
A few birds still twitter
Even when the woods are cold
And when a gentle wind blows
And the autumn leaves russle
Hush hush
Around my ears
Then my years drop away again
Back to the beginning
And rush ahead once more to the end.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
It is her voice that buckles my knees
When she breaks and says please
I break and say please
This is the power of a woman
I can match her strength
But her power makes me powerless.
She might not know everything about me
But she knows the thing about me
That weakens and conquers and strengthens and completes me
This is the power of a woman
It is the power of insight
Because she came from inside.
Learn well this lesson:
Strength is what you have inside you
Power is what you have inside another person
Even when that person is stronger than you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
He was a messenger from far away
This thought that I secretly caught
And wonderful tidings he brought my way
Of all the secret things I still ought
Nay, must, do, must do
To you, my dear, to you.
But this he whispered first of all
That I must meet another stranger first
And secretly yield to his inner call
He lives in me, my root intuition’s thirst
For my secret powers become free
Only after I first become me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
White night
Day bright
Moonsnowlight
Warm, moist and tight
She-sigh, she-bite
She might
Howl again tonight.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I’ve never dated a writer
I wonder what it’s like
To both be awake, thinking
And writing in the night.
Will we share each other’s thoughts
Or keep our thoughts to ourselves?
Will we rejoice together
Or envy each other’s success?
Who will draw from whom
When both are needy?
Who will be the calming pole
When the writer gets crazy?
Who will write the greater poem
Into the book of life?
Greater than words on paper
And conquer inner strife.
Read my palm, it’s full of lines
Do not read between the lines
Between the lines are just packs of lies
Cleverly waiting to bait a writer’s eyes.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 