It’s so easy to forget
Who you are
The longer you live like them
With them
Amongst them
Sleep is depth
Is debt
Is death
The greatest treasure on earth
Is memory
Spirit, it’s so easy to forget
Who you are
On Earth.
Everything seems normal
To sleepwalker.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
I see a mountain
In the distance
A mysterious mind
Over matter
The birds that circle its heights
Like higher thoughts
That hover above a dreamer’s mind
Seeking to make contact
For oft the thoughts we think
And think are ours
Are borrowed
Upon a lazy afternoon, somewhere
In Creation.
A child sits somewhere unseen
Locked in an old body
Each time it smiles
Rainbows and rainbows of new thoughts
Surge out, unite, swing forth, to go seek out
Like-minded wonderers dreaming lazily
Upon a quiet moment, somewhere
In Creation
Blindly receiving the seeds of new thoughts
And thinking the thoughts they think
Are theirs alone
As if the mind of a dreamer
Were not a fertile garden too.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
A moment of poems passes away
And the nostalgia doth arise
Always the same and always, I pray
That it again’ll tomorrow materialise
Cross my path, call of heaven
Breath of heaven, touch of heaven
Cross my path again, from heaven
Whisper someone, touch me, whisper, free me
Break me loose from the cycle of words
I want the Other Poem.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
I’m alive
When I was dead
The words flowed
Knocking knocking in the coffin
Now I’m alive
They hold their peace
I don’t write my fantasies anymore
I live them now
When I start writing again
Pity me. Mourn, mourn for me.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE
There is a poet
He lives in me
I am his host and his prisoner –
He is not married to my wife
He is not related to my family members
He does not come from my country
He does not work for my employer
He is a recluse
A hermit
Who lurks sometimes seen sometimes unseen
In the waters within my heart
I heard his name
They called him Spirit.
He looks at me
With his burning eyes
Only when he has something to say
Then, calling my name, he commands:
“Pen, write…”
And I write.
And that’s all I know about him.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I forgot
I know not what
Because I forgot
And so I wander
And I wonder
Trying to remember.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
It’s one of those wordless nights
When your lover isn’t talking to you
Or you’re not listening – one of the two
Who is thine love? She may be Nature
She may be Poetry, may be a thought hard to grasp
Or a human heart you suddenly can no longer decipher
She may be your path to destiny.
It’s one of those nights when I’m staring
At the TV and not seeing it, staring
At my phone and chatting with no-one, staring
At my saxophone and not playing it, staring
At empty paper and not writing anything.
Yet I’m full.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When, blinding,
The sun’s rays, binding,
The sun’s gaze, finding its way
Through a window, minding
Your business for you, a dazzling hello
Like a friend’s caring
Like a friend’s sharing a heart
You shut tight your eyes tight
A moment –
When love won’t wane, won’t dim, won’t fall
When all you get is love, love, love
You bite back the tears of incomprehension
And open wide your soul –
What your eyes can’t bear, the heart can hold
The heart will grow, the heart will grow!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Life
The bud struggling with itself
Longing to burst into flower
And sacrifice herself to the light
Nations locked in inner turmoil
Searching for the other half
Of the yellow sun
People thirsting for freedom
And then a Cadillac rolls past
A homeless person under the bridge
Their eyes meet in shock of recognition
They are the same
Or soon will be.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
What has been the point of all that toil?
City’s prisoner, corporate spoil
A long line of sleeping, not being alive
Continuous weeping
Waiting for the day I’ll be reaping
That, after which I strive.
My heart has been leaping, trying to see the sun
Beeping, calling for the sun
Until my heart was full to the point of bursting
Full of longing
Blossoming of a full sense of belonging
Deep has been my thirsting –
This holiday, like a holy stay, in Gras- and Windermere
What have you done to me? Suddenly so clear
The poet in me again, ready to go his way
To be confronted
By all the effects of a life he’s always wanted
Work is as play.
There is no alternative to being who you should be
No wealth, comfort, security will make you happy truly
Nothing can compensate a spirit for a wasted life
A deep sense of guilt
At death, crumbling, the empty life that was built
Has not soothed the inner strife.
Boldly go your way, seek no reward, Bravery
Must be your natural part, unaffected, unwavering –
No poet ever wrote for money who served Inspiration
The path is the goal
The burning of the Spirit Flame deep within the Soul
Unpoisoned by Ovation.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
