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
Of Journeying
MEMORYLESS TRAVEL
You have to get there to remember.
On the way there you will forget
Where you are going to
And why.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
POEMS DON‘T CHANGE
Places change people
People change places
Places change people
People change places
Races change people
People change races
Races change people
People change races
Faces change people
People change faces
Faces change people
People change faces
The person who started this poem
Is not the person who finished it.
Poems change people –
But people don‘t change poems.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
GENTLY TREAD
Just because I‘m alive doesn‘t mean I‘m not dead
Just because I‘m talking doesn’t mean anything has been said
Just because I‘m lost doesn’t mean I‘m not being led
You might still be hungry, even after you‘ve been fed,
when you’ve been fed stones instead of bread
Those who heal wounds today, have also once bled.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
SOME COME, SOME GO
Talk to the clouds
As you would talk to a departed friend
As you would write to a distant lover
As you would whisper to your future
Quietly within your heart.
For they are dreams
Gathering on the roof of your destiny
And they shall rain upon you
Or they shall disperse and quietly disappear –
Some are fulfilled, some are not. This is life.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
THE INVISIBLE CLOUDFOLK
Always this feeling
When I‘m sitting on the clouds
Like a horseman ranging afield:
There must be someone
There must be some people
There must be some folk
Living up here in the clouds
Loving the sun
Loving the moon
Loving the stars.
We just don‘t see them
Anymore.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
YOU AND YOUR STRENGTH
When I was younger
My strength was stronger
Than I was
And it made me do what it wanted
And made me undaunted.
Now that I am older
I have become bolder
Than my strength
And I make it do what I want
On every other battlefront.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
MIND THE MOMENT
Your time will always pass
And it will pass at a time
Least convenient to you
Just as it came at a time
Not quite expected by you
And lasted for a length of time
Unappreciated by you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
THE OTHER WAY
Obstacles open the way. The other way.
When they come your way
They have not come to block your way,
But to force you to look the other way
And see another, better, righter, deeper way
And learn to see a way where there is no way.
They have come to show you the way.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
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)
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 