Of Inner States

NO MATTER WHAT

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

What if Rosa Parks had got up from her seat?
What if Churchill had agreed to negotiate with Hitler?
Sometimes even when you are down
Still you must refuse to bow down.

What if Dundee had not pushed out Clay in Round 5 against Liston?
What if Ali had kept his belt and gone to Vietnam?
Sometimes you have to face your opponent blindfolded, because that moment is your destiny and you just have to fight on.

To resist evil, no matter what
To do the right thing, no matter what
To stand to your conviction, no matter what
To keep on fighting, no matter what

A thousand years are as one day
And the way seems to last forever
Sometimes, like now, I feel so strange to myself
As if I were someone else
Somewhere else far far away
Awakening inside me
And, even though I don’t understand it
I just have to let it continue
To take over me,
No matter what.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LIFE IS IN THE HOW?

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

We all part.
Your best company is yourself –
Be at home in yourself
Wherever you are.

Life is in the How.
Not in the What, Why, Where or When.
It is the How that is
The platform of eternal living

Not the nation, not the race
Not politics, power, money or gender
Not family and every thing that will pass –
Only the How counts.

The way you in every moment live your life
Your inner life
This alone will keep you living and happy
Long after all Matter has died.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SOVEREIGNTY

~ Che

Sovereignty is a state of the spirit
It is an inner attitude
A highness of mind
A quality of the soul
It is the expression of a sense of responsibility

If you don‘t mature into it inwardly
You will seek it outwardly in vain.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE GREATER DEATH

~ Che

Literature murders poetry
Fine Arts murders art
Education murders the spirit

The intellect stands victorious over the intuition
The dead over the living
The darkness over the light

Human is dead for now
Tomorrow human will die the greater death.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

NEED

~ Che ~ 5 Comments

One land’s poor man
Is another land’s rich man
It’s all relative
How many meals do you need to be hungry?

One school’s teacher
Is another school’s student
It’s all relative
How much knowledge do you need to be ignorant?

One court’s free man
Is another court’s prisoner
It’s all relative
How many laws do you need to have injustice?

One era’s inventor
Is another era’s copycat
It’s all relative
One religion’s wise man
Is another religion’s fool
It’s all relative
One heart’s sorrow
Is another heart’s happiness
It’s all relative
One man’s woman
Is another woman’s man
It’s all relative
One nation’s outcast
Is another nation’s promised helper.

It all depends
On what you need
Some want the flesh of the fruit
Some crave its inner seed.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE REAL STRUGGLE

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

Some doubt
That politics will not close
The cracks in society
That medicine will not heal
The bleeding soul
That intellect cannot remind
Intuition of Paradise

So they spend their lives
Listening to their head
And ignoring their heart –
They grow the mind
Then leave it behind
When they depart, listening for
An inner voice grown uneasily silent.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije. 

AMNESIA

~ Che ~ 6 Comments

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.

A DREAMER’S MIND

~ Che ~ 5 Comments

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.

TIRED OF WORDS

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

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.

WALKING THE TALK

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

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