You will hurt somebody And somebody will hurt you You will heal somebody And somebody will heal you You will help somebody And somebody will help you You will hinder somebody And somebody will hinder you. For every vice And for every virtue There’s someone to take it And someone to give it to you. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Of Reflection
EMOTIONAL FREEDOM
God is teaching me to not be emotionally dependent on any human being on Earth; to have nobody of whom I think or feel that I cannot live without this person. It’s a painful process, but to everybody who has rejected or is rejecting me, I say Thank you. Whatever your intention was, God has made something greater out of it.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
SHAME
Don’t be ashamed
Of your feeling of shame
For your ability to feel ashamed
Protects you from coming to shame.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
SNIPPETS
Hard words are sometimes the kindest Foraging eyes are sometimes the blindest Life’s help is sometimes to put you to the test It pushes you to move when you long to rest I’ve never wanted something so badly before I’ve never eaten to my fill and still wanted some more I’ve never said goodbye and continued to feel so sore I’ve never been so trapped before in a folklore So many new things starting at the same time Be patient when you’re looking for the right rhyme Little doses of salt and pepper, curry and thyme Life is sometimes a little sugar, sometimes a little lime I love like Haily’s comet, ever and again I come again Laughter fills my heart again and conquers the pain I can’t explain it, I am a lake and I am the rain And so are you, and every end is just another refrain. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
NOBODY IS SOMEBODY
If I wasn’t a writer and a musician, I would not have a social media presence. I would be silent, invisible to the world, and nobody would know my thoughts or my feelings, nobody would know the peace deep within my heart, and the storms and wars that interrupt it every once in a while and then slide back again into the Peace. Only the people close to me and the people I meet at work would even know that I exist. And I would be so happy. Nobody would hear the silence in my heart. Because the best kind of somebody is nobody.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
EVERY FACE
Every face is a story Every grimace tells of lost glory Every I’m sorry Every Don’t worry Reawakens a thousand year old history And solves quietly a complicated mystery From a long forgotten story. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
RIGHT THINGS
Do the right things And do the things right Spread your light wings And make your wings light Whatever the flight brings Inner buoyancy brings flight Up into the bright rings Where happiness rings bright. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
A MAN
As a man, what makes you a man is your dignity – not your wealth, not your standing, not your position or power, not your achievements, not your intelligence, not your talents, not your handsomeness, not your “effect” on people. Only your dignity.
It is your courage to be honest to the world about who you are – because you know who you are. And it is the courage to be honest to yourself about who you should be – because deep down in your soul you also know who you should be.
And who you should be is the man you really are. Your noblest and most ideal self. A man.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
JUST ONCE
There are things that other people can do a hundred times and get away with it. But if you do it just once, you will get caught or it will stay with you for the rest of your life. If another person doesn’t catch you, your conscience catches you and makes you pay for it from that moment until the day you die. To stop it you’ll have to kill your conscience, in which case you die a deeper death. So, in order to live, you have to live with it. You have no choice but to bear it and mature through it. Just for something you did just once.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
WHAT WORDS CAN DO
I’ve learnt the hard way What words can do When I write or say Them to you. When I think you will read between the lines You read the lines, And when I think you will read the lines You read between the lines. Sometimes I think you will understand That I don’t really mean what I’m saying, But the words enter you and start to expand And exact a price I will long be paying. Because words carry life And words carry meaning, A word that cuts and kills like a knife May not be corrected by a word of healing. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 