Be present
In the moment
Or when your moment comes
You will be absent
In it.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Of Seasons And Times
DEJA VU
Is the future
a story we read in the past
and forget in the present?
Or is tomorrow
a story we ourselves wrote yesterday
and life is simply reading it back to us today.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
#poemsthatmakeyouthink
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
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)
THE MISSES I’LL REGRET
Very soon I might have to drop
Half of the things I’m into
In order to find enough time
To do the things I really mean to
The years fly past on fast forward
And everyday I feed the beasts that are eating me
Sometimes I need to stop, check and be sure
If it’s angels or demons that are leading me
Politics and society, belief, love and money
The five names of the very same monster
How long can Reincarnation remain on Auto-repeat
Futilely yelling I came, I saw, I conquered?
So give me that filter, I’ll separate
The misses I’ll regret from all the rest
Even as I wonder if it’s already too late
Before Death comes to pass the test.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ETERNAL SUNRISE
When the Darkness wakes up in the morning, the first thing it does is to look out of the window, see the Light shinning outside – and become full of anger, envy and rage all over again.
Because yesterday when night fell and it went to sleep, it made the great mistake of thinking that the Light is now dead.
The Light is never dead. It will rise again. It is we who turn our backs on it.
But it will rise again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
CHERISHED TIMES
The end is always hard.
Who can part
With the scene of his true living?
We spend our lives dying –
If ever we did anywhere anytime
For a moment live,
Who can with this moment part
From this scene depart
Without a tear?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
BUT TWICE IS NOT ENOUGH
The heart rejoices twice:
When it laughs and when it weeps
The heart flames twice
When it loves and when it hates
The heart greets twice
When it meets and when it parts
The heart is birthed twice:
When it’s born and when it passes on.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
A NEW WORKING
Often, on new year’s day
I said: new life
But today I feel it.
Often I had new year’s resolutions
But this year I feel them
Already I live them
For the first time in my life.
It took all of 43 years to get here
And decades of resolutions.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
CHANGE
Today we play on these strings, tomorrow
We play on different strings…
Today we hang from these beads, tomorrow
We hang from different beads
Today man swings to these beats, tomorrow
He changes to the swing of different beats;
And the lutes we finger are the same
Yet different, for the strings they hold
Have become different with time
Because every new day a new thing brings
And different hearts at different points will beat
On different strings.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
