INNER AND OUTER HEALTH

You switch between poor and rich
But which is which? Your soul is a glitch.
Wealth never made you rich
It only made you a bitch
Poverty never made you a witch
It simply left you in a stitch
Being poor and being rich
Have both given you an itch
Scratch the surface, it is a ditch
Being poor and being rich
Are two sides off the middle pitch
Scratch the sides, run into a hitch
Only Health is wealth, that’s the glitch.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

EASY PREY

You call yourself, proudly, a man,
Fiercely, loudly, a Black man!
Prey. Easy prey. You are easy prey.

Because you stand alone
Because you mourn on your own
Because you don’t show your brother
Just how much you silently suffer
Because you compete against each other
In envy instead of bonding together
Under the attacks of all those
Who consider you their subhuman foes.
Prey. Easy prey. You are easy prey.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

DISTANCE HAPPILY

Family finally -
Friendship verily -
Distance happily -
Thought is vicinity
Feeling is duplicity
Emotion is complicity
Intuition is veracity.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

WHAT WE REALLY SEE

Nobody ever walks down the street,
Everybody always walks through their own world.
Nobody ever looks at the world,
Everybody always looks at an image in their mind.

Nobody lives outside
Everybody lives inside
Inside their own head, inside their own heart
Until you see what a person is looking at
In the core of their being
You’ll never know what they are seeing
When they are looking at you.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

SEEMINGLY A FOOL

You will always seem like a fool
If you don’t shout the slogans the others yell.
Hidden are the factors that rule
The manifestation of events, and only few can tell
How the Law of Reciprocal Action
As explained by Abd-ru-shin moderates everything -
The outcome of every interaction
Between us and our Free-Will our destiny must bring.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

WHAT DO YOI REALLY WANT?

Imagine if the only way God could save you

Was by letting you continue to search and to suffer –

Would you still continue to beg Him to save you?

Or would you ask the devil to make you an offer?

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

NO HOME AWAY

I walk through the valley of pain on my own

By the time friends come I’m already gone

I am All the colours between black and brown

Call me Africa or call me Diaspora, a birded song

Fly without perching, there’s no home away from home.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

BADLY

I‘m hurting so badly
It’s driving me mad
And making me sad
I’ll take the bend gladly.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

CRAVINGS

When they‘re done with you
They hate you
For showing them their darker side
And showing them how much they love it.

Never talk to them in the open
Only in secret
That‘s when they love you
That‘s where they crave it.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

WALKING WOUNDS

We are all walking wounds
Chimeras and Illusions trigger us
And then we fall into a deep hole
Lashing out at shadows that don‘t exist
And hurting real people who never hurt us
And who don’t know why we‘re hurting them
Inside them where they walk their own wounds.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije