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.
Of Transition
THESE ARE DIFFICULT DAYS
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.
35,000 FT. ABOVE TAMANRASSET
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.
PARTING
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.
GUIDANCE
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
MUSIC FOREVER
I wonder
How it will be
On the day I die –
Will I hear that music?
This whole journey
What has it been worth
If I don’t hear that music?
If tomorrow
Will unteach me how to hear that music
Then take me today, dear Lord…
If today I am still deaf
To that music
Then guide me to the source
Of that guitar, and teach me how to grasp
Thine song, Lord, before my day
Is come.
As empty as life is
Even emptier is death
Without music.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
REINCARNATION RIDDLE
How many times do
You think you
Have lived?
Blind mole
I am tired of your arguments
Stray in your hole
Keep on laughing
At me –
The soft brown earth is not as thick
As my dense black skin –
I cannot hear you.
I cannot hear you in there
Yet I know you are out there.
Your recurring epitaph
Awaits again:
The grind
Did wring you, it ground you
Pension was indeed
Your resting place.
Your nesting place.
How many times do
You think you
Have died?
Just once more.
Just once more.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
ENDINGS
You seek them at the beginnings
And find them not
You seek them through the middles
And find them not
You seek them at the endings
And find them not
Because where you were sure you would meet the End
You met only a new Beginning
And when you have started afresh
You understand that there are no endings
Because no stranger ever affects one so strangely
Or passes one by so quietly
As the end.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
YEAR OF LOVE
Before we landed
I saw a rainbow
It came right through my window –
It curved and curved
Until its ends met one another in a circle
A rainbow circle
I shall take with me
To men on earth this rainbow
That I caught in the skies –
Reflect it shall my smile
My every word shall echo it
My every look shall project a rainbow
Into everyone who loves me back
This year. We shall unite
In a circle and, in Love, be one.
This is the year of Love.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
RIVER
Recently, I flowed
I was a river
I forgot yesterday and
Today remembered me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 