There will be hope But the heart must cope First with a season Of conflict sans reason This moon is long faced And tied to a dead sea Rolling scrolls misplaced By startled history. You must be patient Time is clairaudient It hears your heart beating And your footfalls repeating The dance to victory. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Of Dark Feelings
THE RIVER IS RUNNING
The river is running The river of blood Swallowing up, drowning The kwashiorkor road A finger on a trigger Is going to pull one day Mushroom clouds bigger Than any from yesterday. The time has come again To learn how to survive And stand alone in your pain If only you are left alive Children torn from parents Friends and families will scatter In wars between governments Of people who think they matter. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
AGE OF DAMAGE
This is a war that has been waiting to happen They don’t love each other and never did They are not forgiving each other deeds overlapping Generations whose hatred they never hid They send missiles to greet each other The way you and I send words to one another When we’re angry and pain does not bother To differentiate between strangers and brothers It is the age of damage The stage of rage and carnage Angry birds in an iron cage Trapped in rampage. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
GOING SOLO
Once he doesn’t care anymore All the beauty in the world becomes a bore Every tender touch pinches a sore Promises of true love sound like folklore. He walks out forever through the door He totally overturns what he is living for When he has been wounded to the core Every woman now seems to him to be a whore. Fitting in with the act turns into a chore He rips off the mask which once he wore The mask his heartbreak from his heart tore And breaks away from the naive days of yore. An angel or a demon? Neither nor. Be yourself or die trying? Either or. Whatever else life may have in store He’ll carve his own way now to heaven’s shore. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
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
LIKE A FLOWER THINKS OF THE SUN
Think of forgiveness Like a flower thinks of the sun With gratitude nonetheless For a story time once upon For pain is the power to bless Forevermore for if ever done Let anguish be my shorn redress Torn away, for Done! is foregone Revenge and mercy both make a mess But mercy makes the earthier one. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
TAKE YOUR PAIN
Take your pain Don’t run from it Again and again Welcome it You will gain From the purge And after the rain A new you will emerge. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
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
LISTEN
Always hear the unsaid when people talk;
Perceive the noise in the silence.
See the hidden stumble in their walk;
Read the unwritten hope for peace
Even in their threats of violence.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

HUMAN HEART
Santa and Satan are spelled with the same letters.
I just noticed it, please don’t crucify me.
Just know there’s a thin line between the two.
Sometimes when you think you’re looking out through a window, you’re actually looking at a mirror.
Saw this picture and liked it.
Something is buried in your heart and it could be anything. It’s probably everything.
Some pains will stay forever – well, probably not forever. Until you change and forgive and let go. Or until you die, I mean really die. Even when you forget, still you feel the pain and don’t know why. And then you remember – but you still don’t know why you took that first wrong step into the future.
But when you look at the serpent well, sometimes it seems as if it’s rising up to strike or writhing in treachery and deception. And sometimes it feels as if it’s begging for help and crying for forgiveness and looking for redemption. But some unsuspecting fool will pass by and think they’re looking at a heart. But you know better. You know you’re looking at a warning.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

