There is somebody that loves you genuinely; May you find that person - And may you also love that person genuinely. But if you don’t find or love that person, Still may you find happiness in life. Not everyone finds a husband or a wife, But everyone can be happy genuinely. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Of Family Affairs
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER
For whom shall I write now? For whom shall I fight now? Who shall shine the light now That illuminates my heart? Lovers don’t turn into friends, They turn into strangers. Life the gardener tends Both safeties and dangers. But when November ends, December births mangers And shines new light to my heart. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
VANISHING
Don’t come back after I’ve got used to your absence
Your absence has become your strongest presence
If you return too late you’ll only find yourself gone
Replaced by memory, you’ll be the invisible one.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
BE WHO YOU ARE
It does not matter who your father is,
Or was. It only matters who you are;
Throw off the reputational burden of his
Life, whether a nobody, a crook or a star.
It does not matter who your mother is,
Was, or will be. You have your own destiny.
Be firm in rejecting her spirit’s liabilities,
Nor bask in her glory. Write your own story.
Never ever allow family to be your bondage.
If wealth is not health, detach and go higher.
The chains of name, blood, and heritage
Are human assumptions, not God’s desire.
God wants each unique creature to be true,
So experience and enrich the world as You.
Free your children too from the Obligation to
Follow, serve, help, complete or redeem you.
If your story happens to be your family’s too,
Then so be it, that’s who you genuinely are.
But if your story is totally different and new,
Don’t feel guilty; accept and be who you are.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
ONCE WE WERE LIGHT
Once we were light
But the world weighed us down
Drowned out our cry of resistance
And put a bandage over our eyes
A desperate cry for help
Before we fell silent
And started to look silently at our children
The way once our parents looked at us
Now we know what they were thinking:
Retain your magic! Retain your lightness!
Even as they said to us worriedly:
You have to learn to fit into the system –
Knowing it was not the way
But knowing no other way
Or knowing it but not having the heart
To push us off the cliff –
Because not everybody grows wings
When falling through the gap.
The generation gap.
Now we watch our children worriedly
Wanting them to become like us
And wanting them to stay themselves too.
Once we were light
But the world weighed us down.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
RELAY
If every new generation
Rose up twice as high as the one before,
Humanity‘s elevation
Would see us soon knocking on heaven‘s door.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Footsteps On The Sands Of Time
Kwame, you would have turned 47 today, but that dream died a long time ago. You didn‘t even quite make it out of teenage.
But, brother, your few poems have long made it unto the pages of our hearts for all eternity, like footsteps on the sands of time.
Available on Amazon:
Footsteps On The Sands Of Time: (Poems)
– by Kwame Ekwueme Chukwumerije
COMRADE
There was an eagle in your eyes
In your gait
In your voice
In your words
In your deeds
In your mind
In your Heart, Daddy –
It was you. Your spirit. Your essence.
That eagle is flown away today
Six years ago
But the arch of its flight is still imprinted
In my memory
Like daylight in the nighttime.
A Comrade in life
And a Comrade in the afterlife.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
In Memoriam:
Comrade Uche Chukwumerije
11.01.1939 – 19.04.2015
Ugo Mba 1 Isuochi
Dike Ogu Ndi Igbo
Convinced Socialist. Proud Panafricanist.
Father. Teacher. Comrade. Enigma.
BOYS TO MEN
The older I get,
The more I miss my father.
The more knowing I grow,
The more I miss him.
The more I know him.
The more I understand him.
We live life forwards,
But understand life backwards.
When it‘s too late to change anything,
That’s when we understand everything.
The young shall grow.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
(I just feel like remembering today)
FEAR NOT THE IDES OF MARCH
Fear not the Ides of March
Go boldly your path to the end
What’s unclear today, another Plutarch
Will explain one day again
Fear not the Ides of March
Fear is the foe of your nature
Your feet it’ll drag, tongue it’ll patch –
Heed not every Seer or Preacher
Fear not the Ides of March
Though your friends turn into traitors
Or family conspirators, sly and arch,
Join and jubilate with your tribulators
Fear not the Ides of March
Death cannot upturn your victory
Tough as larch and strong as starch
Shall eternally inspire your Story.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
15.03.2019
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 