English

FUNDAMENT

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

Let us be a little quiet
For the night is quiet
And still are our thoughts
That hurry on ahead of us

And in the quietness, let us
Reach each into the other
Let us for one moment be
Each a visitor within the other

Let us touch the fundamental thought
Something that is valid
On every plane, in every world
On every earth, in every Beyond

Something that is true in life
And true in death, true in hell
And true in heaven – the one thing
That is always true, everywhere.

The essence of our humanity
The substance of our spirit
The kingdom within, joy, gratitude
Simplicity, honesty, love. Especially, love.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BITTER

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Do you know that never-ending road?
Do you know that ever-increasing load?
Do you know that pain when you receive pain?
Do you know that pain when you give pain?

Do you know that quarrel that can’t be settled?
Are you sore? Bitter? Embattled?
Do you want to hurt them back?
And hurt each time you hurt them back?

How elusive it is, no matter where you look
The last page stays missing in a riddled book
Vengeance will drive you to the ends of the earth
But won’t show you the way back to your hearth.

Revenge is its very own bittersweet revenge
The irony of the avenger – cruel, sad and strange:
To be trapped, a victim of your own vendetta
And wonder why it still doesn’t make you feel better.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

A BUTTERFLY SHOULD LEAVE ITS COCOON BEHIND

~ Che

I love you Baby
But sometimes Love
Is not enough to make Lohengrin stay.

Don’t knock on the door
Of the Unknown, if you don’t
Want to be overtaken by the Unknown.

But if you must, you must
Even when the line you have crossed
Is the boundary of trust.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

DON’T READ ME

~ Che

READ YOU.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

EVERYONE

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

Everyone is a little deaf
To some other person
A little blind
To some very important lesson
A little dumb
And someone’s fool
And a little numb
And sometimes a little too cool.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LOVING BOTH

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Just like on quiet stealthy
Hesitant feet
Autumn circles and stalks
Summer’s heat
My thoughts reminisce
My heart’s sweet defeat
My dreams learn to become
Silent and discrete

’Twas never love
That broke a heart
Love never was spurned
That understood the art
Of stoking desire
By slaking its thirst
And stoking desire
By letting it thirst

And knowing the difference
Between the two
Is loving Summer
And Autumn too.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

PASSING LOOK

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

A blind man walked into the busy tram
His cane tapped audibly on the wall
Of many a closed mind –

There was an unsteady way he shuffled about
Stumbled, and then clutched the railing
Without letting go of his staff, still swaying

In his other hand three polyethylene bags
Full of his grocery – I tried but
Could not read the look on his calm face.

I hate it when the conversations die,
He must be thinking, I’m thinking
As the whole tram stared at him

But he could not stare back.
Two stops later, he gingerly tapped his way
Out of the tram, his face calm, illegible.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FALLEN THROUGH THE CRACKS

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

Originally I used to cover my face
I was new to the street
A freshly fallen angel –

Would old friends pass this way
And recognise me? Old colleagues?
Old neighbours with whom I shared
A beer and a philosophical hour
Reflecting on the vicissitudes of life
The changing destinies of human lives
Society, politics, the role of science in
Religion, male jokes about women
And feeling entitled to be fortunate.

Will they recognise me now, when
They pass this way and hurry past the
Wretched beggar on the street corner
Maybe throw him a coin but avoid his intrusive eyes?
Opposites don’t match, is their marching song
Did they recognise me in me?

But I don’t avoid their eyes anymore
The eyes of my yesterday
Not anymore
Not anymore.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

TWICE IS NOT ENOUGH – pt. 1

~ Che ~ 8 Comments

Whisperings
…
Whisperings of a new return of harmattan…
Is it hazy? Was it foggy? Dark, bright?
Feels, like Dawn, Sounds, like Dawn
Looks, like new Dawn –

An early breath of Harmattan serenaded
My heart –
Birds accompany, airy prose
Crickets nonstop chirping
Yet night is gone ~
Deeply I love the boundary between
Rains and thirsty Harmattan…

Nature has said yes,
Why say no?
…

For some reason, that poem had been going round and round in her head all morning. It had been with her when she arose and saw the haze through the window. It had been with her when she thought of her destination. But she had lost it now, in the middle, on the path between her beautiful beginning and the end of her journey. Now she was walking past the toughest, roughest, most chaotic, dirtiest market in her world and it had torn her out of her reverie. She would have much preferred not to come this way, but she had to, to get to the bus she needed.

The beautiful woman continued calmly down her path, ignoring the lusty cat-calls being pelted without restrain at her by the Oshodi traders. Rough young men with coarse voices and bad intentions. Given half a chance, they would make her regret not only her manner of dressing today, but that she even came this way at all, to this dirty, colourless, overpopulated market, to do her shopping.

Yet she walked with her head high, as though she were not burning with shame as she heard the phrases they were directing at her.

“Na me and you o! If I finish you, you no go want leave me lai-lai!”

“Baby you carry o! Me sef I carry. Come see am!”

Loud peals of dirty male laughter rolled after her. Her? Other people were following the scene with amusement. She walked as fast as she could without seeming to be in any hurry. There were other women, she knew, who would have returned insult for insult, thrown dirt for dirt, traded bad tongue for bad tongue, claimed an eye for an eye, verily, and a tooth for a tooth…. But she couldn’t. She was above that, above them. So she silently breathed her humiliation, in and out, in and out, in and out.

Soon she was out of range of the insults. She was in the thick of the crowd now, marching with the faceless rhythm of those who work a lot and earn a little. The masses. Nobody paid any attention to her now. Everybody was walking fast, as though propelled by a common will. Now she relaxed, and as she let out that one big outflow of breath, for some reason a few tears accompanied it and blurred her vision. Surreptitiously her left hand came up to her eyes and, in one quick little motion, her thumb and forefinger, stroking inwards from the outer corners of both eyes, met at the top of the bridge of her nose, and her vision was restored. Yet she was angry.

She boarded the Molue and settled back uncomfortably between two market women on a seat that would surely have seated only two people conveniently, if convenience could ever be spoken of at all in connection with a Molue bus. But a fresh breeze sighed softly through the window as the bus gathered speed and left the hell-hole of a market behind.

… to be continued-

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

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SING OF GREEN

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Sing of green
For soon it’ll be gone to dust
A memory of autumn’s ancestor
Saying I used to know a lass
And her name was Summer

Yet look underneath her smile
Yes I mean her brightest smile
Where a shadow sweet as secret sorrow
Suckled on her honey lips
And read my thoughts of you

Then sing with me, sing of green
From the caverns of throat
Dry hoarse tears, from depths of wrong
And right, let the hordes of your
Passion shout with song!

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.