Unusual is the hand
That can count backwards
The name of the original land
That birthed its ancestors forwards
Every many generations the slate is wiped clean
You think you are there where you always have been
But most every native is a fruit of some old migrant tree
That forgot its deep roots in some distant ancient century
And some disappeared Country.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When they seek bread
You hesitate to speak
Of the bread of life
For they look you in the eye
And say
Can’t you see that I’m hungry?
How can you make
The spirit strong
When the body is still so weak?
And so you fall silent
And wait with the rest,
For the rest, in peace…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Prose is a form of hiding
Within a forest of words
Poetry it is that betrays
The wounds behind the words
Prose says a lot of things
In order not to say one thing
Poetry says one little thing
In which is contained everything.
Where does pain come from?
Does it, like the wind
Arise when hot air rises
And the cold creeps in within?
Where does time go
While we’re waiting for it?
Where do you find hope
When you’ve lost it?
There is a flame
It is your spirit, it burns
It touches upon a point
That yearns and yearns and yearns….
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The deepest pain I had
The loneliest shame
My most sacred joy, yet I share
My most personal hopes
I not only voice
But unclothe in poetry’s inner light
So you see
More than you wish to see
Because all true art is
A private experience.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I saw hope, lost
On the hills, amnesiac
And she was
Looking for hope.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
And then you will see
That blind people see
The things that are invisible
To you and to me
And then you will hear
What the deaf loudly hear
When silence is all
That you and I hear
And then you will understand
That children understand
To store deep in their memory
Things they don’t yet understand
When a moment full of pain
Opens up your heart again
And you learn to look again
And see again, and hear again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Children are united
By childhood
Adults divided
By their adulthood
Too smart is the mind
That sees division
The spirit is inclined
To strive for union.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
That moment
When the bitterness
Isn’t bitter enough to sour
Your forgiveness smile
And yet sad is the smile.
How friends fall away like unmasked leaves
Unable to bear the weight of trust
In all its lightness
Treachery by politeness.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
They promise you it’s great, the key
So you leave your home
And wander there
Where you acquire great knowledge
Which you will store in the emptiness
Of your soul –
For, nothing else can fill you up anymore
Stranger everywhere you go now
Home and abroad.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
You don’t know
How it feels
To feel abandoned
Disoriented, homeless
Unprotected and lost
Do you?
It’s the worst thing
That can happen to
A child, a youth in
The making, a heart
In the breaking, an
Adult early forsaken.
It follows you
All your life
Like a boat sailing
And sailing and sailing
Looking, for land
To go ashore, never-finding
Sometimes I see
A pair of eyes
And I know that
You too were abandoned
And have never found
Your way back home again
The world is full of
Loneliness and stories
Half-written…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 