Have you ever listened to
The night talking to itself
While you lay there beside one another
And not a word occurred to you?
You see the end approaching
Like a boat coming to the shore
To take you away
Away from a laughter called love
And as your worlds drift apart
In the space of one short night
Strange, but no words occur to you
To adequately say goodbye.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Drooping, a wing, the corners of a mouth
A face, a heart, a pair of wings again
Drooping –
A second life –
All alone. What does this mean? It means
Nobody has ever grasped.
You see the flower at dusk
Which you saw at dawn
The flower recognises you and opens up to you
But you pass it by
You have gone blind
You have walled yourself in
In that moment in which
You lost your
Insight…
By and by, you learn again
To see
The same flower of always
Waiting beside your heart,
I leap.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Awakening out of a deeper reality
A dream of music, philosophy, poetry
Still ringing on in me, but fading fast
Each new second retaining less than the last
The dream fades away like an improbable past –
A populous sea into which a porous net is cast
The intellect tries to find again words, details
From each finishing dream but maddeningly fails –
Words which I just wrote down, somewhere, somehow
In a dream I was having sometime just right now
Melodies I was humming, natural realities I saw
I feel them still in me, but see them no more
For the heavy cloak and mind of a small and rigid earth
Have imprisoned again my consciousness, like once at birth –
For as swiftly and surely as we once forgot the baby tongue
As we grew from baby to child, yet remained young
So do words, connections given to us in our dreams
Oft disappear during Awakening, magically it seems
The harder the Intellect tries to affect their remembering
The faster it hastens their forgetting –
Even while we are still lying, freshly awake, in the morning bed
Watching one thing fading, another taking over, inside our head
As one sun rises, another sun is setting gently –
The glass is unclear, twilight illuminates faintly
Dawn and Dusk together were breaking…
Wish I could remember who I really am, upon awakening.
Not acceptable, this unending sleep
Of an eternal consciousness in the Deep.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
When your people come calling
Big Brother and all
Will you be able to resist the pressure?
Will you still be you
The You you now are?
When your people come calling
Will they assign again to you your old role
Or will you assign to everybody a new role?
Will you still be you
The You you now are?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
If you’re a wall
Don’t pretend to be a door
Or promise me a window
Stand tall to your word
So I can lean on you
When I’m feeling trapped
Gasping for air, seeking light
Don’t let me come running to you
Thinking you will open
I will hate you forever
But, more than that,
My trust will grow wings and fly away.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
They share things with one another
Which some say husband and wife
Ought not share with each other
Yet they do –
When I asked them why, they paused
And the tables turned and they
Said we are not husband and wife
We are married only for the sake of society
In truth we are friends and enemies in one
Lovers, fighters and sojourners – born
Of the same madness, of the same truth
Of the same sadness and joy and mystery –
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The last was the first
It burst out of the blue dark skies
And brought light! It shone
And won our hearts, our better parts, our bitter parts
Yet it was the last.
The first was like the last
It melted away softly into wintry blues
And, oozing, seemed to reunite with windows closed
And nothing more was to be said, all appeared dead.
Yet it was the first.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
What do I write when
In truth I feel so insecure
Plagued by a thousand doubts and a thousand thoughts
Of things unanswered yet…
Ah! My mind is so terribly sharp! It cuts me everyday
Deep incisions of distrust and indecision –
Yet, out of them I grow…
There is a world of unanswered questions
A gap, in the middle of two stories
This gap is filled with our memories and dreams
A little part only of which we see… –
A Plague, a terrible plague
The restiveness of the human mind
It rages over the earth, devouring in numbers…
People fall victim, die in numbers –
A few survive, who live to tell the tale
Which the others shall call the masterpiece…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Look at the palm of my hand,
My lineage has run riot –
Griot! Take note!
For the palm is the root of our land.
Tapper, come down
from them high
intoxicating dread locks,
The Elders on the ground
Can see beyond the highest tree.
Tapper, come down
And tap your roots instead
Look at the palm of your land.
Before you boast, ask yourself if you really know
The back of your hand.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
(PALM LINES)
The red cloud o’er the mountain is top
Beneath is white and the mountain-cap
A bird sings just one single note
O’er and o’er by rote:
To give is to get is to give is to get
O’er and o’er and o’er again
To give is to get is to give is to get
Sans chorus and sans refrain.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 