Of human beings

HAWKSHEAD

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

If Heart could speak on its own
Without Brain as translator
Spoke its Intuition alone
Unmindful of intellect, that imitator
What startling things, yet unknown
Would fill the world’s books?
What silent waters, from their deep zone
Would rise as bubbling brooks?

If there were Child in Adult
Awake, seeing, hearing, speaking
If adults would spare themselves the insult
Of hiding the child they in themselves are keeping
How different every day would feel
Refreshing, natural
With the adult balancing the child’s zeal
And the child making the adult more natural…

Youth, so important
Magic Time between two times
Child and adult merge concordant
Complementing each other like natural rhymes –
What you are in your youth is what you’ll be forever
Deep within your heart –
The heart speaks its mind but once, and never
Again from that path will depart.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije (Poems inspired by the Lake District)
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THE THIRST COMMANDMENT

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One man’s iconolater
Is the other man’s idolworshipper
Only the iconoclast
Is atheist – to some
Iconic deity itself to others
We see from different sides.

One man’s woman
Some nights is another
Woman’s man
– shout! all you want
Hidden things will continue
To happen in hidden places.

Understanding is
A fragment of that
Cracked mirror’s bottom.
Return from your space ship
Bewildered scientist
The greater mystery is humanity.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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HOLD MY HAND

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

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I just feel hope in my heart
Because that’s all I have left.
So I hold on to hope, my wine
And I smile even though in my heart
I harbour a river of tears
Ships adrift in rudderless cry
And I can’t find the shore

So I’m drunk on hope
And I’m high on hope
Some call it illusion
Or even delusion
But we who have a vision
We call it hope
All we have, all we need, is hope.

And then in the morning
I wake up with a hangover
Looking for new hope. Hold my hand.
My ship is looking for land.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

 

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MADIBA

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

image
Kindness was his rod
With it he parted the red sea
Kindness was his road
Wide enough for all of humanity

Step forth, step forth, step forth
West, East, South, North.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

UNYIELDING

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Words never stopped anyone
Whose heart was a gun
He’s just out to kill someone

Night never scared anyone
Whose heart was a sun
He’s just out to bring a new dawn.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SAVING THE HUMAN RACE

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

Another typhoon
Another tsunami
Another hurricane
Another earthquake
Another flood
Another fire
Another loss and pain and tragedy
Why am I still counting all this heartbreak?
We will all fall victim some day
To another natural accidental act of fate
It is our one united destiny upon this mysterious earth.

And then the wars and the migrations…
Some say they are human-made
But don’t blame only the countries involved
Many other people and governments secretly share the blame too.

We suffer as a continuum,
One humankind.

If these things don’t bring us together as one human race, then nothing will. Saving the human race is not just about saving lives. That is just the one half of it. The other is the anchor: It is about preserving the humanity in us when we let another’s suffering touch us and move us to help. We save two human beings. Them and us.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

HATRED HAS MANY BELIEVERS

~ Che ~ 9 Comments

Watch that hatred bang
Its head on the wall
Watch it struggle against a bridge
Over a gorge, dig a hole and fall
Hear it, baffled, ponder into the night.
The middle is thinning out into left and right
I know you don’t believe in the light
Because it’s hard to believe in something
You don’t understand –
It’s safer to hate in numbers
For the logic of hatred is easy to comprehend
Only a few will be left standing
After love has conquered the land.
Tread soft, haters, you’re walking on quicksand.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

REINCARNATION

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

How many lives did you need
To come alive in this one?
How many graves are marked
With those names
Which you will never know again
Never bear again?
Countless and faded.

Death, that great equalizer
Will remix your cards again
So before your life be lived in vain
Make something good of this birth this time.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

GROUPS OF US

~ Che ~ 5 Comments

How deep is homogeneity?
Does the colour of our skin
Express our similarity
Or mask the differences within?

How deep is nationality?
Does the passport we share
Stamp an ideological ethnicity
Or is it convenience out of fear?

Some plant gardens of roses
Some love lilies alone
Another meadow composes
A bouquet of everyone

Who can say rose gardens
Are prettier than plains
That lilies alone gladden,
Or a field that all contains?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

EVERYONE

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

Everyone is a little deaf
To some other person
A little blind
To some very important lesson
A little dumb
And someone’s fool
And a little numb
And sometimes a little too cool.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.