Happy Anniversary

14/12/201723/07/2019 ~ Che

Wow. Who would have thought?… it’s 5 years already.
I started this blog with the intention of posting a poem a day for a whole year – and I did that thtoughout 2013.
I wonder if I should do it again in 2018… 🙂

LOVE WITHOUT AMBITION

14/12/201705/08/2020 ~ Che

There is still so much to draw from
So much love
It becomes easy if
You don’t pair it with Ambition.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

MODES THEORY

14/12/201705/08/2020 ~ Che

The theory that some people are good and some people are bad; some people are dependable and some people are unreliable; some people are weak and some people are strong; etc, – is false.

The proper recognition is that you are dependable to some people and unreliable to others; some people experience your good side, some suffer your bad side. In some situations you are strong, and in some situations you are weak.

You are full of theories, but in reality you are just a bunch of modes, like your mother nature herself.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

DISHARMONY

09/12/201708/09/2019 ~ Che

There came a time in my life when I prayed to die. Not because I had no food to eat, but because I had no gratitude with which to eat the food. Not because I had no bed on which to rest, but because I had no rest to place upon the bed. Not because I had no one to talk to, but because I had no friendliness to offer. Not because I loved death, but because I hated life.

Then I met a journeyman inside my soul, full of humility, laughter and ordinariness. And of the boisterous acceptance of the reality of things.

I am still trying to fathom this journeyman, to understand who he is; to come to grips with the simple realities of everyday life, like everyone else also does, none of whom is less weary of the toil than I am.

To become a man, Nigerians say, is not the job of one day. It requires time. Think I not that only I long for Home – every other Wanderer does so as well. Every.

Mayhaps if we made the Earth a better place, the journey would not be so unbearable afterall. Or what sayest thou?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

PAIN LIKE A STREAM

05/12/201705/08/2020 ~ Che

Like a stream runs this ancient heart of mine. I write truest and best when I am in pain and all alone; this is when I write down tomorrow’s pieces. Not when I am happy and relaxed; lazy, immature me.

When I have comfort, I forget, I become complacent. When there is peace, I laugh, which is good, but I also fall asleep, which is dangerous and wrong.

Maybe two thousand years from now I will be mature enough to be happy and be inwardly mobile simultaneously –

Pending this day, however, pain will be the helper of the Poet and of the wanderer. Pain and love and longing. To Keep me awake, to drive me onwards…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

RUNNING WATERS

01/12/201705/08/2020 ~ Che

The story you told in the west is not identical with the laughter you laughed in the north, nor with the song you sang in the south, nor the thoughts you expressed in the east…

The language you spoke on the mountain is very different from the tongue you adopted in the valley, and from the violins you played through the woods, and the ballad you composed upon the blue-green meadows…

The roar you let out as you charged past us has a different content from the groan the desert drew out of you; and the whisper which ye sighed in this grateful heart is not the same cry with which ye flow into the sea.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

VOICES NEAR

27/11/201705/08/2020 ~ Che

Has Music jarred you through and through before? I don’t mean the base, coarse Music of now. I’m talking about the High Trumpets of the Immortal Realms. Have you heard them before?

Have you heard your heart beat before? I mean not the muscle. I’m talking about the leap of the flame in you when Heaven gave you a Name. What’s your Name?

Show me your friends, man, and I’ll tell you who you are – your real friends. Show me your Palms and I’ll teach you your destiny.

Have you ever before been blinded by dazzling Sunlight? Not the sun in the sky, but the Sun Above All Skies. – Show me your face, sister, and I’ll read a Million things thereupon.

Yesterday gave birth to today. Today yields tomorrow, the known unknown.

When I am alone, alone, sometimes, I remember my brother faraway… Not he who died recently, but he who has never once died. The Immortal Spirit whom I knew – before we were born as brothers on earth – in a blue Kingdom far so far away. A Kingdom whose Name, if I ever knew it, I have long forgotten.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.