Intuitions

STRANGE MYTHS

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After love was killed, it rose again. After day was banished, it returned again. After joy was smothered, it shone again. After ours was buried,… there – it resurrects.

But I wonder: when the universe sings in unison, do we hear music or do we hear again the first silence? But I know: when eternity smiles or laughs, no heart can help but smile and laugh along. Now the question is: who will point out to us the Way back into the fabled land of tomorrow? Only Today can do it, out of whom Tomorrow is ever and again born.

And like strange mists are all those myths which reassure us of the Immortality of spirit and love. You may not quite see through them with your understanding; but if you are patient, they finally turn out to yield the truth. Because when the mists break and un-form, you see again the very same road they once had shrouded.

But is this poetry? Or is this love? Or did Word and Spirit ever meet, or ever part?

Soon the Mists will break open and we shall see what lies inside this heart…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE DANCING TOUCH

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But require of me not that I dissect and demystify and recloak in petty words every poem, every rhyme, every song I write… and too many words obscure the subtle effect of the dancing touch of inspirational truth resting within the breast of true poetry…

Do you feel the stirring? Do you taste the salt? Do you hear the unbroken chant of spirit and light? Do you feel something…? If you do not, then you have no question. But if you do, then how come you do not understand the question in your own heart, when the language is yours and yours alone?

The dancing touch of poetry is more elocutive the less it is worded and worded too quickly…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE WATER DANCER

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As I was travelling from one place to another, once upon another time, I saw a young man with a friendly smile that occupied his lips and eyes, and – what do you know? – each time he spoke, he danced…

As he spoke, he danced to his own words. And as I spoke to him, how strange, he danced to my words too.

We had a deep and searching conversation, exchanging hearts. And by the time we parted, he was the traveller – although he still danced – and I was the dancer – although I still travelled – for we had changed, and exchanged, hearts.

I taught him how to travel, he taught me how to dance. If you will travel, then you must become like water. And this dance which he taught me, so strange, but it seems to me also to be…

The water dance.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE SHY IN EVERYONE

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I can show you the earth, I can show you the sky, I can show you the sea, the sun and the moon; there is nothing I cannot show you, but my heart. Yet: what is in my heart, you may wonder? And truly there are only simple things therein, little things forgotten and unforgotten – yet I shall not show it to you.

You can touch the sky if you really try; you can swim every ocean, river, sea and Lake. You can stand on the moon, you can stroke a candle-flame; but, try as you might, you still cannot touch my heart, unless I let you. Not my heart… not this little heart of mine.

Is my heart fragile? Sometimes. Is my hard adamantine? Sometimes. What is a little human heart? A mountain? A sea? A cave? A mirror? A forest of flames? What?

I can show you everything but my heart, because locked within it is a painful shyness that simply cannot bear to be seen, or touched, the wrong way, by the wrong hand, or eye, too soon, too late. It is gone. Innocence. What happened?

If I could take away the Shyness from my heart, then I could show you my heart… but then all the fun would be gone. For a heart without shyness is only a memory of a heart – and my shyness is very precious to me and my heart.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

DYING STARS

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In our hearts we feel it sometimes, we know it fullwell, even when we deny the feeling to everybody, including ourselves and our best friends, yet we know: the star is dying…

There you see it, in the spiritual firmaments of the decaying soul. It used to be a bright star, friendly and confident, and pure as miraculous crystal. Once, it shone and sparkled, twinkled and flared and brightly laughed like a flaming eye in the skyscapes of who you truly are… in the skylines of your sensitivity and consciousness.

What is that song which just faded out? It was not any ordinary song, nay. It was the star that lived, and died…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

NOSTALGIA’S DONE

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Just now I saw a morning star, luminous in the sky high up above me. And then suddenly I see it no more. Blue-grey clouds are journeying past in silent, ominous solemnity. Morning has dawned. The birds, they are a-singing. Early people are writing their feet into the road… and I am sitting outside, writing poetry and pretending it is prose.

Perhaps by the time I am through, and raise my head anew, the clouds would have gone completely by, and my star will be visible to me again. But if not, yet still I carry within me the picture of my morning star, as luminous in my heart as it was luminous in the sky.

I suppose this is what they call Nostalgia.

Now, see: the sun is rising, and the light is come again. Star, sun and light. And there is spirit inside of me – spirit and love.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

HISTORY AND DESTINY

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Plenty of questions but no gaps, only seeming gaps – but how would you know unless you first tried to fill the gaps in answer to your questions? Then you fathom that you are the gap, you are the question, and the answer rests in you.

Plenty of questions, but not all are gaps. Plenty of gaps, but only some are visible, while the rest, the sleeping questions, are still waiting for you tomorrow. You don’t even know your deeper questions yet, the ones that will really tear you out of yourself and make you a part of something bigger than you could ever conceive of today.

Because you are the gap and the question, you are the answer, the future and the fate. And the more you find yourself, the more you find your questions. And the more you find yourself, the more you find your answers. Until there are no gaps left, and everything becomes simply the story.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

TENDER SPOTS

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There is in me a very soft spot for naked tables and chairs, pens and empty sheets of paper, and a feeling that if I do not write the poem write now, it will never come again. It is a very special soft spot and very dear to me, sees me through lonely nights and empty restless days and times of unfocused focus and focused unfocus and is much better than many other a pleasure.

The heart is inside, the voice outside, and a strong voice without a heart is as baseless as the pointlessness of a voiceless heart, burning and knowing and mute. I have a very soft spot in me for that quick tender urge that would have me run again, a pen upon waiting sheets, a snow-lion stalking buried treasures, a singer learning and singing new songs, simultaneously.

Water is the king and when your heart runs like water, poetry becomes an uncheckable force – everywhere you hear it… everywhere you hear it. It follows you, it enters you, it captures you until you have mastered yourself in it, then it sets you free to roam again. Yes, this is my jungle.

I have in me a so soft spot for that glowing star, yonder flame that has decided to call me Home. Yes, Song, let it ring, and with my life I will follow, poet and musician and man. There was a beginning but, I vow, there shall be no end to eternal tenderness inside you and me.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MASKING MASKS

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What you see is but a mask, not a face, not the true face, but a mask, a facade, masking the first mask, the true mask which once upon a time was the face of a human soul. But now it’s a mask, the real mask, masking nothing again but emptiness. The mask becomes the life, the life becomes the mask, masking everything, but unable to mask our emptiness.

So when you finally succeed in unmasking one, it would do you good to bear in mind that the face you discover underneath is again nothing but another mask. And you keep unmasking them, one mask after another, one lost dream after another, one tomb after another.. and all you see are masks, masking masks, round and round the mulberry bush. And when you finally begin to ponder and wonder: But where then is the human, the wearer of all these masks? Where are we? What are the masks hiding, then, if all we encounter are masks?…

Then, dear friend, you must understand that the ugliest of all these masks is now the human being himself, and what we are hiding is the fact that we have lost our true face forever.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

UNDERSTANDING YOURSELF

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You will find, strangely enough, that you actually secretly desire the downfall of the person, place or thing that you love.

You will find, strangely enough, that the person you hate is the person you love; and the thing you fear is the thing you hope for; and the place you leave behind is the place you are going to.

You will find, strangely enough, that your friends envy you, and you envy your friends; and your enemies admire you, and you admire your enemies.

You will find, strangely enough, that you long for what you cannot have, and disdain what is easily yours; and already you have what you are still seeking for.

You will find, strangely enough, that the biggest fool is inside you and the wisest sage resides there too, and the fault which you can tolerate the least in others is the very one which you finally have the most.

You will find, strangely enough, that love is like the air and, thus, everywhere – and, like the air, sometimes you breathe and sometimes you suffocate.

And I also wonder why the other world always seems more intriguing to the person just coming from it.

What am I looking for? Anywhere I go, you go. And, in the end, you will call me your teacher, your helper, your friend. But I, I cannot help but try to understand what happened to me as I fell.

You will find, strangely enough, that even after I’ve hurt you, you still love me; and after I’ve healed you, you still detest me; and after you’ve comprehended me, you still fear the unknown side of your destiny.

So why not just open up your eyes once and for all, and do it all over again – and, this time, do it right.

You will find, strangely enough, yourself.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.