Of challenges

JUST ONCE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

There are things that other people can do a hundred times and get away with it. But if you do it just once, you will get caught or it will stay with you for the rest of your life. If another person doesn’t catch you, your conscience catches you and makes you pay for it from that moment until the day you die. To stop it you’ll have to kill your conscience, in which case you die a deeper death. So, in order to live, you have to live with it. You have no choice but to bear it and mature through it. Just for something you did just once.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

ASSUMPTION IS THE FILTER OF CONSCIOUSNESS

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
Realising you’ve been deceived
Is very hard to believe
Because it looked so real
How it made you feel
But that is the first rule of deception
It must never look like deception
When you look at a wolf clothed as a sheep
You don’t see a wolf clothed as a sheep
You see a sheep. Everything around you
Could be a cover created to confound you.
Our wishes, insecurities, vanities, memories,
Propensities - they all block our senses.
Assumption is the filter of consciousness.
Worse, presumption. Everything is a dress,
And who or what is wearing each dress
You will learn by experience as you progress.
But as you become more knowledgeable
You ironically also become more gullible.
You are stunned, as you learn and grow,
To realise there’s still so much you don’t know.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SMILE

~ Che ~ 2 Comments 
Did you know that
Smiling makes you happy
When you’re feeling crappy?
Did you know that?

I bet you’re smiling now.
And if you were feeling crappy,
Now you’re feeling a little happy -
I bet you’re smiling now.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE DAY THE LAUGHTER CAME AGAIN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
The day the laughter came again
I stood in shock and stared at it in awe
Like a stranger from a distant terrain
For I had forgotten to a tragic flaw
How laughter sounds and makes you feel.
It felt so good it made me want to cry;
The power of laughter and joy is real -
A heart that laughs purely will never die.

The day the laughter came again
I was at the lowest ebb of my life,
My soul wracked every day by pain,
Torn by questions and unresolved strife,
I woke up that morning and prayed to God,
then set out to bravely meet the day
And as I, work-focused, did onward plod,
Laughter came to me again along my way.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

UNTIL IT HAPPENS

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
You think it matters
Until it happens
And then you realise
It doesn’t really matter

You think it kills
Until it happens
And then you realise
It only hurts for a while
And then it disappears.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

PRE-DAWN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
The light is gone from my heart
And gone from my life
And cut out my most sensitive part
With a dark burning knife

But I don’t care, because underneath
The heavy mountain of pain
A greater flame bursts from its sheath
And lights up my heart again.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SUDDEN JOLTS

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

I cry spontaneous tears
They come unbidden
Rolling back adult years
All of a sudden
The wounds, the tears
A shuddering bolt
And a painful spasm
Of old fears and new cares
That repeatedly scars
Anew my heart with a volt
Of shivering behind cold
Iron intangible bars
A body-wracking jolt
And then the next moment
I quietly laugh again
Grateful and content
To reap my fruits in pain
I don’t know when
The tears will come again
At 2 o’clock or at 10
In a meeting, at a game, or on a plane
Or taking a walk in the friend zone
Or sitting at home all alone.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

REAFFIRMING DIGNITY

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

When a woman leaves a man who loves her to follow a man of money, it is the most crushing pain a man can feel. But if he does not let it kill him, it will only liberate him in the end. Every once in a while you have a chance to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself “I am somebody”. Something will push you there. Something that seems aimed at robbing you of your dignity, your pride, your self-respect. Something that will try to tie your actual value as a human being to some material status or achievement or level of acceptance by someone or some people. Something that will make you feel small. And nothing does this deeper than love that chooses money over you. Then you have to stand in front of the mirror and look into the soul of that man staring back at you and recognise his true value. Remind yourself of the principles at the core of your foundations as a Human Being. Remind yourself of what connects you to God and to true life. And teach yourself again that your value is more than your monetary wealth or material standing. And don’t allow anyone to tell you otherwise – not any man and not any woman. Because, In Your Dignity, You Are Somebody.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

DON’T GET LOST IN THE DARK

~ Che ~ Leave a comment 
Don’t get lost in the dark
Wait for the mist to clear
The emotions never speak the truth
They are always informed and biased by feelings
You just have to wait for the mist to clear
It takes a shorter or longer time to pass
Depending on your nature
And depending on the circumstances
Just don’t get lost in the dark.

Azuka Chukwumerije

LOVE AND PAIN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Why is there so much hurt in this world? Why is it hard for people to join hearts without causing each other pain? Why is pain an unavoidable component of love and of togetherness? Is the human spirit really incapable of honest, pure, harmonious, mature love?

The people that love you are the people you will hurt, and they are the people that will hurt you the deepest and the most. And yet you cannot stop loving and you cannot stop loving them. Nor they you.

Who has ever found happiness on earth without it being laced with anguish and spiked with periodic doses of lacerating pain? If you haven’t found this, then you’ve never felt love yet. Because you can never find the love without the pain.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains