The tomb
Heaven’s womb
The womb
Death’s tomb
When did you stop caring?
When you stopped fearing.
Your life is a window you’re wearing
Your death is an illusion you’re bearing
You can break with your past
Without committing suicide
Look out and cast
Your nesting mast
And thinking nests outside
Out wide.
You are not
What you think you are
What they think you are
What you’ve been told you are
What you’ve never been told you are
Because you forgot.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The earth is not my home
Although she ever seems
To weave fine birds that her heights roam
Like I do in my dreams
The earth is not my home
Although she always tries
To spread bright hues across her dome
Like in my home’s blue skies
The earth is not my home.
However hard she plot
To dull my homesickness with foam
She in the end cannot
The earth is not my home
And yet I wander here
And know that when my end is come,
Strange, still I’ll shed a tear.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
Upon every Passenger that comes my way rests the weight of a wish borne. Some carry with them, over oceans and continents, desires they have nurtured – sometimes unconsciously – from infancy. Yet they must upon a time bear fruit. If I were to consider every one a book, rich would be the language that riddled their many pages with tales of many tails. And yet we say to one another “Good day”, “What can I do for you?”, “Just a second”, and things like that as we drown our entire humanity and history in silence during a moment of business service or corporate interaction.
But once in a while one will come my way who looks into my eyes as though we were both human and, as we address the issue of his baggage, his ticket, his itinerary or some other such stuff, we talk about music, the arts, sports, history, headline news, but never in detail of course about politics or religion. We don’t have to anyway. Little things show one already where and how each person stands.
And then the day will pass and many other customers will come and go, and nothing wrong or below standard will be said or done, but only that one customer will remain in your memory who spoke to you about music, literature, the arts, sports, his family, your history, some headline news, but never in detail of course about politics or religion. It wasn’t necessary. Little things leave the biggest impression.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
A smile, a wave, from where did it come?
From beyond the earth, or heaven, or where?
We feel it, we see it, reflect it here from
And spread it the earth round, here there, everywhere
Blessed be they who work in the field
Who work with their hands in the soil
Blessed be they who, yield after yield
And season on season yet toil.
The end, the start, the middle of work
Like fishers at sea, unceasing, we roll
Like all true handworkers who never ever shrink
The call and the urging perceived in the soul
Blessed be they who work in the field
Who link man and nature on earth
Blessed be they, in them doth life shield
The true future waiting for birth.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
Because of something misunderstood, although constantly seen, we fought; we fought against one another. Neither of us was killed in the intense battle, but our friendship died, brutally murdered by mistrust and injured vanity and faults unconquered in you and me.
There was a word we left unspoken. Would that one had spoken it all this time, would that we had broken down the barriers, the artificial barriers, yesterday.
One day too late, yet all we see are smiles. Is it a joke, or a word of comfort, or a tale, an apology, a ruse, poetry or a bridge? Like it was when we started, like it was, is. Secrets sleeping sleep on still in the sands beneath the sea, lapping up the shores of solemn promises that may never be broken, until the sands are wetted and the rigid stances have melted, lest we break.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Twice I touched her heart
So she cried
Once she cried
And then she cried no more.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The city is overcast with the blue mist of dawn
Swiftly fading
The street lamps of night
Hurriedly dwindling
Yesterday’s man
Softly gazing
A tiger’s cub at the setting moon.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
This is a DUET with FairytaleEpidemic. Check out her wonderful work here.
I don’t know where to start
And that’s a good feeling
Bless my heart
I’m lost, I’m reeling
Fishing to find
What I’ve misplaced
So I set foot
The steps I retrace
Beautiful wilderness
River, how you make me
Shiver when you undress
Bewilder and break me
Cupping my hands
To drink you in
An insatiable desire
Of moisture against skin
Taste, drink, swallow
Ignorance, life’s cocktail
Rising to the head tomorrow
Knowledge leaves a trail
Of breadcrumbs
In this drawn out quest
To rediscover oneself
Or get washed like the rest
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije and fairytaleepidemic
Not because of what you did
Or did not do…
Not because of what you said
Or failed to say…
Not because of what you know
Or never came to know…
But because in your eyes I espy
A certain thing
Which I cannot immediately define
But by which I have hope
That you will be the important one in my life…
Patience.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When will he stop
Persecuting that guitar
His voice is hoarse
It hurts her
It digs a hole in her armour
Roughly
And scoops her out
Hoarsely
I wish I could remember him
In my dream tonight
When silence is wall
Enclosing me and she is gone
His voice is gruff
A street musician
Enjoying his moment on stage
Roughly.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 