of Subtle Strokes

PICK WITH CARE THE ENEMIES YOU BEAR

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

Pick with care
The enemies you bear
When the unexpected is near
They shall be there
To crown you.

When true friends
Step off the boat
Curious, how the river
Turns your coat
Around you.

Clear your throat
Vomit when no-one is looking
Regurgitated oaths
Pressure-cooking
Sunbrowns you.

If diplomacy
Be their tactless god
How shall he decipher
Your non-committal nod,
Proud you?

But brave soldier
It is the art of war
To live on in pages
Of folklore
Unbound to you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BUT

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

There are many roads
But only one will lighten your load
The question is
What price are you prepared to pay?

Life gave me a lemon tree
A pinch of love will feed the multitude
The bearer of the word will walk on wind
And disappear unseen, grateful to have simply been
Himself.

What price are you prepared to pay?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

ONCE SO DEEP, NOW SO SHALLOW

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Once so deep, now so shallow
Once never walking the path I now follow
My farm lies fallow

Another dimension
Same old sung in a new key
Sharps, naturals, empty flats
We’ve moved house, you, I

I like it that there is no barrier
In between
My view into your eyes, your view into my heart –
It gives me hope
Furnishes me with counterproof more powerful
Than the deliberations of thoughts

Did you renounce anything for this love, this hour, this
Life? – The words grow stronger
The more I write; the light grows brighter
Within the night, beneath the descending Halo.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

COLOURS

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

There are thoughts that define
And there are thoughts that defy…

There are hearts that deny
Hearts that desire
And hearts that never run dry –

And there are hearts
That run dry –
But I won’t cry.

There were thoughts that struck me
Thoughts that thunderstruck me
And left me dumbstruck –
These are the thoughts that stuck to me…

But if we say sometimes yes
Sometimes no
Sometimes…
Yes sometimes no sometimes yes.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

AN OBSERVANT LAKE

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Grasmere Lake

How much of it is left?
How much of the mist
Still revisits my mornings
Before my thoughts come calling?

From afar, I
Mean from gazing
Across time, it
Is a wonder to hold in
Your heart a
Thing that never
Fades, never
Weakens, changes
Never, teaches you how

To know the
Things you really
Love. They are the
Ones you never
Forget.

This carry with you as you mature
Measure with this everything you nurture
The camera behind your mind
Will click and capture
A lifelong picture
Of the things that slipped through,
The people and places that got to the core of you.

It will continue to happen inside, an observant lake
Like another part of you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Cumbrian Lines: Poems Inspired By The Lake District.

BEING BAD AND BEING GOOD

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Simultaneously..
How does that work?
When the moon is the only light
She must not be ashamed of her nakedness

If the sun feels he is so great
Well, where is he at night
When we need him the most
To keep away?

Look not upon your faults
When you laugh, let it come
From deep within and make
Your tears jealous.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

GOODBYE, LAUGHTER

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Have you ever listened to
The night talking to itself
While you lay there beside one another
And not a word occurred to you?

You see the end approaching
Like a boat coming to the shore
To take you away
Away from a laughter called love

And as your worlds drift apart
In the space of one short night
Strange, but no words occur to you
To adequately say goodbye.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

UNDROOP

~ Che ~ 10 Comments

Drooping, a wing, the corners of a mouth
A face, a heart, a pair of wings again
Drooping –

A second life –
All alone. What does this mean? It means
Nobody has ever grasped.
You see the flower at dusk
Which you saw at dawn
The flower recognises you and opens up to you
But you pass it by
You have gone blind
You have walled yourself in
In that moment in which
You lost your
Insight…

By and by, you learn again
To see
The same flower of always
Waiting beside your heart,

I leap.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SPRING AND WINTER

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The last was the first
It burst out of the blue dark skies
And brought light! It shone
And won our hearts, our better parts, our bitter parts
Yet it was the last.

The first was like the last
It melted away softly into wintry blues
And, oozing, seemed to reunite with windows closed
And nothing more was to be said, all appeared dead.
Yet it was the first.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

PLANE FLIGHT

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

An azure mind paints lightly the horizon
Its thoughts a cloudy mess
That grow old too quickly and fall to
Your knees from these incontinent skies

Like a stranger walking through the
Valley of the Shadow of Death
I trek noiselessly through my thoughts
And leave the plane-flying to the pilots

The reason why these things are writing me
Is because I have ripped out old pages
And need to be re-marked, re-bled, re-lined
For I have lost my old mind.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.