Of Relationships

WRITERS AND LOVERS

~ Che ~ 32 Comments

I’ve never dated a writer
I wonder what it’s like
To both be awake, thinking
And writing in the night.
Will we share each other’s thoughts
Or keep our thoughts to ourselves?
Will we rejoice together
Or envy each other’s success?

Who will draw from whom
When both are needy?
Who will be the calming pole
When the writer gets crazy?
Who will write the greater poem
Into the book of life?
Greater than words on paper
And conquer inner strife.

Read my palm, it’s full of lines
Do not read between the lines
Between the lines are just packs of lies
Cleverly waiting to bait a writer’s eyes.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SHARED SILENCE, SHARED DISTANCE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Your silence deafens music
The songs don’t move me anymore
But to tears

Your absence ‘tis so loud
Woke me up with a jolt last night
And your emptiness shivered

And I recalled your poems by name
The rain, cheeky, in your hair
The palm wine melody line of dancing pain

It is our way
To do the things that cause us pain
And then share the pain with each other.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

CAPTIVATION

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

I used to call you petal
Each time I pulled your lobes
And read your thoughts
Discreetly from far away in my personality
The way the farmer reads the clouds
Early in the morning

And thus you told me, without words
When to sow and when to reap
When to prune and when to weed
And when to wait with the patience
Of a farmer waiting for the harvest
Of his labour of love…

Those were the months you thought I was cruel
For the mystery of mirrors is this
The mirror cannot show you what’s
At the back of your mind. Only your lover can
When he breaks your heart
In order to get into it and conquer it

And thus did I imprison myself
For the conundrum of conquests is this
The king is the captive of his own kingdom
And when you let me break your heart
Little did I realise that you did it
Just to make sure you got me in

I came in for the kill
And never made it out again.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

KNOWING ME

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Someone stood by my side
In that hour when
Self-confidence is asleep
And self-belief has lost its way

In that dark hour when
All you do is question yourself
Because phantoms and demons and ghosts
Are whispering in your head

It is the hour when thieves are about
Stealing your last bit of self-worth
Under the cover of darkness
Thieves are faceless and this they know

And she was my sun when there was no sun
And she was my strength when I fell
And in my hour of deepest doubt
She kept our faith.

But one more thing she did
She took a walk through my dark side
And left signposts along the way
And told me: This is also you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE ONE

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

Groupies gave you pleasure, but
Did not make you happy –
Only lonesomeness explained why
Too many moons kill the night
Too many moons spoil the dark

Pluck your moons one by one
From the autumn of imagination
One by one, let them rise
One by one, let them pass

In the absence of one
I had them all, but in truth
I walked with none
Talked with none, loved none
And the night was dark as day

And the night called a new moon
And night after night she grew
More and more beautiful as she
Slowly came, slowly stayed, slowly passed…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FIVE THOUSAND KILOMETERS AWAY

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

Your love was a noon dance
Abruptly torn out of the startled wind
And then your heart beat
Sorrows are stepping in rhyme with the breathless wind

They say it was an African evening
Moonrays on my yesterday, hush little girl
I can hear your sobs five thousand kilometres away
For night unites what day divides
Dreams reveal what the heart is hiding
I know you miss me still

Those morning strolls underneath the bougainvillea
Golden teardrops bloomed along the empty street
The hibiscus was our only guardian
The day you became a woman and I a man.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SUN

~ Che ~ 9 Comments

Today I looked again
Through the rain and saw
The sun, but the sun wept
And it was the rain
Again

So I let the sun wet me
And every love that met me
Will never again forget me
The source of your flowing pain
Your sun, your happiness
And your rain.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

CLOSED CYCLES

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

You start. I’m scared, my friend,
Of finding the floor with my feet first
They might lead me astray

Doubleback. The start is the end
Why quench your longing with a thirst
That might never go away?

It’s hard to move
When you move together
One has to receive, and one has to give
Together in opposite directions

Well I can’t prove
If we do or don’t belong together
But cycles close, something had to give
And unmasked all our pretensions.

Missed opportunities
Mixed opportunities.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

IT WAS IMPORTANT

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

When the cloud waved goodbye
To the sky, turned to rain
And fled to earth, it said to sky
I’m not going back
I’m moving on

When I left you, changed
And came back into myself
It was important for me to let you know
I was not going back
I was moving forward.

The old is not old
When seen with new eyes.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FORGIVENESS

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

That blossom
That let go of the tree
And fell to earth
Is forgiveness

That recognition
That pain was the unavoidable teacher
Is forgiveness

That cleansing tear
Is forgiveness.

But I never want to see you again.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.