So, your enemy
Disguised as a friend
Separated you from
Your real friend, in the end.
Well, it’s all good, it’s all good
Wear not regret as a crown of thorns
Love those you have today.
What use is the morning’s advice
If you understand it only in the evening,
When it’s too late
You think?
The day is already gone
Well, it’s all good, it’s all good
Love the night too
The moon is a growing sun.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
What is this haze?
My mind becomes a maze
My feet remember their ways
By memory always –
The things we learned by heart
Shall be the surest chart
In our last days
The Adult becomes a child anew
And sees what the child once saw in the morning Dew.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
This guitar I remember
Was once a part of my life
A most tender member
A most precious joint
The soil of the start
The point of the matter
The giver of self, she gave herself up…
This guitar I remember.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Years pass
And all you do
Is return to the same
Recognition –
All the searching and adventuring
And experiencing and reflecting
Have only taken you
In a circle back to the Recognition
You acquired
The first time you were good…
There’s really only one way of doing it aright
Morally…
And you’ll have to come back to it
One day.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
What do I write when
In truth I feel so insecure
Plagued by a thousand doubts and a thousand thoughts
Of things unanswered yet…
Ah! My mind is so terribly sharp! It cuts me everyday
Deep incisions of distrust and indecision –
Yet, out of them I grow…
There is a world of unanswered questions
A gap, in the middle of two stories
This gap is filled with our memories and dreams
A little part only of which we see… –
A Plague, a terrible plague
The restiveness of the human mind
It rages over the earth, devouring in numbers…
People fall victim, die in numbers –
A few survive, who live to tell the tale
Which the others shall call the masterpiece…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Women are so serious, you know
There’s a way she looks at you sometimes
From beneath her eyelids
And you know
She’s taking a second look
Because you passed the first test
Then even your heart skips a beat
You don’t want to fail the test
But you don’t want to pass it either
Oh how you want to pass it! Oh no
Oh yes – oh, shut up! Men are pigs.
Just be grateful for whatever she gives you
And try not to mess it up too much
You don’t deserve it anyway.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
In the hospital waiting room
It was not the sick who were ailing
But the healthy who accompanied them
I saw more worry in the eye
Of many a mother
Many thoughts on the brow of
Each accompanying husband
I saw that love shares burdens
And carries them doubly
And friendship will go the extra mile
And family is a wordless wonder
And the heart is the deepest mystery on earth.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I knew it
It was too new
Not to be true too –
The questions unreplied were too few too
Happiness swallowed all the cares
Sorrow wears
Discord tears
Happiness shares and it goes around
The world is enough
Big enough, small enough, world enough
Sure.
Manure is pure. Sure.
Even a decadent mind
Even that dark heart
Can laugh out loud
Out loud –
Manure is pure.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The freedom you give yourselves
Is the freedom you’ll share
If you say I won’t be free
You’re bound to binding me
If you say you’ll own it all
You’ll have to fight us off
Because I want a piece of peace
A pint of prosperity
A joint of hope and happiness
A chunk of a chance at success
A healthy dose of social security
And a shot of education –
Give us our share!
Cheers!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
You make me richer
The more I give to you
The well fills the pitcher
Lovingly. This is from me to you
Sings the well, a wishing well
No coin can grant the wishes
That kindness will, a kindness well
Your heart, a table of rare dishes
More profound than profundity
Wiser than the wisest sagacity
Where it stops – the world – there begins
Aye there begins Friendship, and wins.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 