Up the road a few trees beckon
A moment of shade on a hot sunny day
If I stop and seek here refuge
I’ll miss my appointment at the end of my way
For my path is not my goal.
No thing of beauty will hold me down
No period of quiet will slow me down
No place of peace will hold me back
No woman, no wine, no work, no glory will change my story
For the path is not the goal, no matter what they say.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
I know I’ll never have it
It will never be my lot
I know I’ll always want it
It will always be my thought
I know I’ll forever have it
It will forever be all I’ve got
If I seek hard and seek right and seek long for it
It will elude me not, my seeking won’t come to nought
But if I die before I find it
Please, somebody, seek what I sought
And, when you find it, tell it
About me who sought for it
And found it not.
————–
che chidi chukwumerije
————–
Every end is a bend
Every conclusion is a transition
Every termination is a transformation
The terminal
Is diurnal
Life means undeath
Unsheath the wreath
Catch your eternal breath
My friend.
– che chidi chukwumerije
Souls stranded at sea
Search-pilots say they are ghosts
Whisping like clouds on frothing waves
But fishermen swear they are worried human faces
Who approach with one plea:
To send one last message back home
Before they vanish:
It will be well
Until we meet again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Like the lost letter
I sent to you – the postman never said
It never arrived
And I’m still waiting
For your unsuspecting reply
And yet it is you who are waiting
For me on the other side.
How can coplanar souls lose sight of each other?
Their calls echo leeward and die unheard.
How can planes fly into the wind and disappear
And leave gaping wounds behind
Lost at sea?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Every time I want to go
Something tells me to stay
So far away from home.
Those who want to go end up staying
Those who want to stay end up going
So far away from home.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There is a well
A deep oily well
Bottomless
It has swallowed time
My life time
I live in the future
I live in the past
I can’t find the present
It has squeezed hours
Split seconds
I cannot find time
Time to explore time.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Is that sea or sand
Out of which the jagged
Jaggered, the daggered mountains
Arise?
A sea of sand
A limitless band beneath my eyes
A voiceless voiceless sea of cries
The mountains and the desert.
I fly away, I don’t return
A heart, I beat, within a metalbird
I sit and stare
At the weight of all the thoughts that I bear
World without end.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
In the tears in his eyes I saw the question
What will happen to her
When I am gone?
There was a tenderness about the way
He looked at her, spoke to her
Touched her arm with every third word
And his eyes that looked into the distance
Were not gazing back at their past
Or wondering about his afterlife
They were looking into her future and marvelling
At the fact that life goes on
Even when you’re gone.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There is a certain guidance
In our lives…
Birth was not the beginning
Death is not the end
If you remembered your beginning
You would understand why
Your path is the way it is
And why your end will be
The way it’s going to be…
There is a certain guidance
In our lives…
The inner voice has something to say
Echo of Creation’s prod
You do not heed your inner voice
Because you do not know
What you are supposed to be
You are confused by what you see
And cling to the wrong thoughts…
There is a certain guidance
Anchored in your inner voice…
You have to go the whole path
Only then will you reach
The end of your suffering
The beginning of your joy.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 