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
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.
In order to survive
I birthed another me
Long long ago
When the first feels disoriented
I pull him back
And let out the second
The second is uncontrolled
Full of propensities
And hungry to do it all
But he’s all I’ve got
Suicide is not an option
The journey’s not over yet.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I searched long for it this afternoon, and I finally found it – a poem I wrote for Muhammad Ali, back in 1988 (my, where did the years go?). I was 14 and had just started exploring the world with words.
THE GREATEST
This is a long-overdue salute from me
To him who has truly amazed the world
He who is the greatest boxer the world will ever see
And has been proclaimed the ‘Greatest of them all’
This is a long-overdue salute to Muhammad Ali.
It’s almost impossible that it should be
That he could be so good for nearly every bout
For he could really float like a butterfly and sting like a bee
He’d dance in and kill, then dance and get out.
The world started noticing him when he beat Sonny Liston
That’s when he beat him with his mouth before the real fight
Then he continued shoutin’ and screamin’ and boastin’ and braggin’
And decking every heavyweight that was in sight.
In America there’s meant to be religious freedom, really,
Yet when Cassius Clay became a muslim
And changed his name to Muhammad Ali
He became the most unpopular champion since Jack Johnson.
Ali’s list of victims grew quite long
And he became known as the fastest heavyweight in the history of boxing
But when he refused to fight the Viet-Cong
He gave the racists the chance to ban him from fighting.
But the people never forgot Ali – never!
And he always stood up for what he knew was right
And when he let them know he’d ‘retire Joe Frazier’
THEY just had to let him come back and fight.
His three-year lay-off had its toll
When he lost to Norton and he lost to Frazier
But he evened out the scores and beat them two-one
After breaking Foreman down, down here in Zaire.
He slackened and Leon Spinks snatched away the throne
But Ali came back and showed him who was King
He then retired, then came back for the new King, Holmes
But his freelancing had caught up and he could only do his pre-fight sing.
Ali will never again come back to the ring
Because he’s suffering from Parkinson’s Disease
But though the Butterfly has lost its wings and the bee its sting
The saga of Ali will never cease.
He is the greatest.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
05. July, 1988.
Some things happen but
Once
In a lifetime…
It was here, it was there
It was where?
It is where?
It is gone…
It will never return.
-che chidi chukwumerije
Pain kills
Pain heals
Pain thrills
It steals
And wills
And feels
And it chills
When pain rhymes
It rhymes with the times
And when it doesn’t
It doesn’t matter
Pain only rhymes when it matters.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
The children come out to play
And all is gay
In the month of May.
The farmers make their hay
In the shinning sun’s ray.
Hand in hand as they go their way
Young lovers whisper what they have to say
On their way to hear the new priest pray.
And following the song of the stock-bird jay
Gentle old couples of yesterday
Quietly remember their youth today.
The essentials will stay
When all else goes away.
This is the song in the heart of May.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
Every new day is the future you’ve been waiting for. So, all those things you’ve been meaning to do in the future, do them now.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I saw three things up in the sky
Two birds and the moon
The birds flew away
While the moon remained
For a few hours,
And then was also gone…
Will you make me a promise, love
Never to be gone?
But like the sky be always there
Even when all else is gone.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
The earth is not my home
Although she ever seems
To weave fine birds that her heights roam
Like I do in my dreams
The earth is not my home
Although she always tries
To spread bright hues across her dome
Like in my home’s blue skies
The earth is not my home.
However hard she plot
To dull my homesickness with foam
She in the end cannot
The earth is not my home
And yet I wander here
And know that when my end is come,
Strange, still I’ll shed a tear.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
