Of Relationships

YESTERDAY’S FLOWERS

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

My memories, are they mine?
Whose Definitions do definitions define?
How many sides has a line?
Grape juice is drunk, but not on wine.
My memories, are they mine?

They are my memories of you,
So what are they? If I asked you
Then I‘d be asking the you of today –
I’d much rather ask the you of yesterday,
The you in my memories of you.

But is that, or was that ever, the real you
Or is it just my memory of you?
My memories of you, are they yours?
Or are they mine? Or are they ours?
Yesterday’s flowers bloom on in me and you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

BOYS TO MEN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

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)

ONE FRIEND

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

If a true friend is gold, are they poor that have no friends? Or rich by default, for peace of mind is also the lot of the lonely who is spared the irony of the laughter and companionship of false friends?

How often have we met with a friend and parted from a stranger a short while later? In these days of sad revolutions and mixed allegations, of spying and cyber double lives, of migration without integration, of hospitality without sincerity, of religious justice without religious love, of racial regrouping, gender re-evaluation, and social hardening, and of eternal unchanging vices; if you have one friend, just one friend, one true friend, then you have something more precious than silver and gold.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BONDING

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

You know those walks we took
Down untarred streets and red
And brown was sand and book by book
We discussed all we’d read

You know those suns that set
As quietly we’d gaze
With hearts that knew to not forget
The orange tempered rays

You know those thoughts we thought
And knew not their origin
Yet marvelled side by side at what
Hearts bonded could be given

Nations will rise and fall
Sages will come and go
But Friendship will outlast them all
Through you, this I now know.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FOLLOWING YOU HOME

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

When the woman goes away from the home
The home goes away with the woman
And then the home goes away from the woman too
And returns to the home

Remember this before you go away, my dear
The home will return to you
Because you are you
The home

Anchor the boat to your heart
And then float away with me
And I will follow you home, dear sweet baby
I will follow you home

Remember this before you go away
I will follow you home
A poet is born somewhere tonight
I will follow you home.

————–
che chidi chukwumerije
————–

AGAIN

~ Che ~ 8 Comments

The punishment for being brave
Is having nothing to do
But be brave –
A tidal wave is rising in my soul.

The reward for being brave
Is having to do nothing
But be brave –
A tidal wave is crashing in my soul.

She warmed her cold tongue with
The flaming words of a passionate poet and
Lashed a gutter of decadent lava on
My soul.

Yet I told her still the truth
Again and again and again
And again and again, again
And again.

– che chidi chukwumerije