I wonder
How it will be
On the day I die –
Will I hear that music?
This whole journey
What has it been worth
If I don’t hear that music?
If tomorrow
Will unteach me how to hear that music
Then take me today, dear Lord…
If today I am still deaf
To that music
Then guide me to the source
Of that guitar, and teach me how to grasp
Thine song, Lord, before my day
Is come.
As empty as life is
Even emptier is death
Without music.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
You make me richer
The more I give to you
The well fills the pitcher
Lovingly. This is from me to you
Sings the well, a wishing well
No coin can grant the wishes
That kindness will, a kindness well
Your heart, a table of rare dishes
More profound than profundity
Wiser than the wisest sagacity
Where it stops – the world – there begins
Aye there begins Friendship, and wins.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
How many will survive when the drones
Say Hello
When a young lady, barely out of
School, is fingering somewhere a hidden button
And a closed-minded kid, for whom
The world is a distant myth
Sits for ours masturbating a joystick?
Their message is a drone
Their package death faster than the
Speed of sound –
How many will survive when the mad
Men on the other side also get their hands
On the deadly secrets of death?
How many will survive to teach tomorrow?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
You have to go deep
To decipher the truth within
Deep enough to be unable
To come out again. Catch 22.
Then you will ask yourself
What use is the knowledge
If you cannot use it
To free yourself from the truth.
But humanity kicks in
The instinct for self-preservation
Some call it the third eye
The inner voice, the sixth sense.
Reason says go left
Yet your feet turn right
There is an inner road
That leads through the night.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There is a lonely patch of plateau
Hidden away on the mountain highs
Behind the windstrong oaks
Betwixt twin peaks
It is where we parked peace, away
From sight
A sore spot in our memory.
Like a dark crack between two Valleys
Ass cheeks you burn to scratch
The world’s buttocks hidden away too
Is shifting restively restlessly because
There is an itch down there, a mad itch
And its name is war.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
This Grail they’re all searching for
How far away it must really be
’Cause they never seem to find it –
Seems to be even farther away than true love
And the ability to love truly and unselfishly…
Now how far away must that be?
I have heard
That there are some people somewhere
Many people in many places
Looking for the Grail…
This Grail they’re all searching for
How far away it must really be
’Cause they just never seem to find it –
Far far far away.
I cannot find it, but can it find me?
If I find Love, will it find me?…
Will it show me the way to it
And show itself to me?
The eternal Call of the Grail…
This Grail we’re all searching for
How far away it must really be
‘Cause we never seem to really find it.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ONCE UPON a time, here beside your heart, I waited.
I waited and waited, but you did not open up. Why? I thought you said you loved me. Finally I knocked on the door, but the door did not open up. So I knocked on the window, but the window remained shut. Then I peered in through the glass-pane of the window. The curtains were drawn aside, I had a clear view into your heart.
You were lying on a couch, a soft couch, you were sleeping. What were you dreaming of? I did not know. Whom were you dreaming of? I did not know. Your eyes were closed, just like your door and your window, there was a peaceful look on your face.
You looked so restful that I did not want to disturb you. I would gladly have remained outside rather than disturb the serene sleep of your heart. But, you see, it’s cold outside and it’s getting dark, and strange figures approach me and call me by strange names to which I know that I must never answer or I’ll be caught and I’ll be dead.
Won’t you open up the door? Won’t you awaken from your sleep?
So I began to sing. It was a song that I had never sung before, a new song that arose unbidden from my heart. The song entered into your sleep and entered into your dream and showed you the way out of your subconsciousness, and led you out of the hall of dreams… and, as your eyes opened, you saw me at the window and I saw the love and the fear in your eyes. Love because you love me. Fear because the monster is standing over me.
But if you rush to the door on time and open it quickly, I will escape the monster and you and I will become one heart.
Hurry up, dear, I’m almost dead.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I have lived here
Once before
I know
Upon the blue mountain
On the island of songs
In the kingdom of a thousand suns.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Hardly a night goes by
Hardly a breath flows, an evening
Melts
Without this thought
You brighten my life
Curly windows
When the crowds are many
I am alone
I wanted to be a nightingale
To be a flower
I wanted to be a star
The evening wind blows
I am human. Let it be…
Sometimes again
Freed from the city’s shackles
Hackles, hard tackles
I am green, bright yellow, blue as sky
Glad am I.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I want the lines of your palms
Written in my diary
My future lives
As though they were already past
My days numbered
My deeds counted
And when I scoop your two palms to my face
Inhale your peroxide breath
Exhale my soul, blue kiss
Your eyes, too round full moons
Have dawned on me with undisguised thoughts
Warning me:
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 