Of Relationships

TWO ROADS THAT NEVER MEET

~ Che ~ 8 Comments

In space, so strange, I observed
That roads abound
Some straight, some crooked, some even swerved
And came around
And then saw I two roads together walking
Side by side they walked, all the while talking

They spoke, they joked, they conversed
But never touched
Yet still as friends they traversed
Countries that notched
They sometimes turned and peered into each other’s eyes
And yet, so strange, they never formed any ties

They diverged, they converged, and again,
For days on days
They changed, they exchanged, each its lane
Yet kept their ways
And on and on they travel on their way to Heaven
Never parting, never touching, sometimes odd, always even…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

WHEN BIRDS TOUCH HEAVEN

~ Che ~ 6 Comments

When birds touch heaven
All we hear is
Music

And the music
Melts away the frozen tears
In my eyes

And my heart aches for you
But what is done is gone
Heaven and bird and wishing star

Where are you?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BIRD OF PASSAGE

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

5 minutes of midnight
5000 midnights of missing your moon
may your return be soon

you crawled like a gecko
all over my surface
and you kept on nodding and running

a crowd of summerlovers is heading south
the winter has beached north
airport is breath-short, what’s a goodbye worth?

wherever you go, think of me
like a plane that ever returns
like a bird, like a thought, like seasons and the night.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LOVE IS SILENCE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

The vast spaces of silence
Within a human heart
The sky is not vast enough

To engulf this silence
The sea is itself absorbed and lost
Within this silence

Where are the stars?
Where are all the stars?
The stars are so numerous

Yet see all those vast unlit spaces
In the night-sky
The sky is dark

But my heart is vaster
And as the silence spreads and spreads
And engulfs my Soul

The light is lit
See, see, the light is doubly lit…!
Silence. There is this silence

Inside my heart
And she told me it was simple love –
Together we stand.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

WITHOUT WORDS

~ Che ~ 12 Comments

image
It must be hard for you
To be the subject
– or is it the object?
or is it the heart? –
Of so many poems.

When you stumble, remember:
I love you and you love me

Even if there be no poems
Even if there be no songs
No mountains, no photos, no words…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MEMORIES OF FALKENSTEIN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

image
The years have raced by
Yet our story is not begun
Two hearts cannot cry
Without reason, and upon
My heart I see the snowclad valley again
The mist, the promise, the joy and the pain
And I know it simply
Surely and firm
Our river runs deeply
Unbroken, fullterm

Be not afraid to follow yon distant star
Until you love me, you won’t know who you are.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

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.