PEOPLE NEVER COME BACK

People never come back
They move on to the new you
Or to their new perception of you
With or without you
And you move on to the new them
Or to your new perception of them
With or without them
But the old will never come back.

Tomorrow will come.
Those who try to cling on to the past
Lose their way and orientation very fast
Because Time never goes back.
Those who meet again do so in the future
As different people with a different Nature
Because only going forward takes you back
Home.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SELF-RESTRAINT

Just because it’s available
Doesn’t mean you should take it;
Just because it’s achievable
Doesn’t mean you should make it;
Just because it’s vulnerable
Doesn’t mean you should break it;
Just because it’s uncomfortable
Doesn’t mean you should fake it;
Just because it’s unshakeable
Doesn’t mean you should shake it;
Just because it’s accessible
Doesn’t mean you should wake it;
Just because it’s expendable
Doesn’t mean you should stake it;
Just because it’s edible
Doesn’t mean you should bake it.

Some things you just leave as they are.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

LICENCE TO LAUGH

Learn to bear your pain in aloneness,
But don’t bear your aloneness in pain.
Aloneness should bring relief from stress,
Should help you inner peace to attain.

Being alone with your sorrow is sad;
Share your aloneness instead with your gladness.
Seclusion allows the Healing Power of GOD
to save you from overstimulation and madness.

And you will be born anew in silence,
For aloneness is the mother of transformation.
And joy shall be your portion and your licence
To laugh again, in you a flame of Devotion.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

STRANGE WAYFELLOWS

People are already on a path when you meet them,
On their own path, with their own mission.
You think they’re walking with you, but then
Suddenly they jump off at some junction.
As strange and disorienting as it seems to you,
The truth is that it was not a new decision
That they took. They were never really with you,
They were always going in their own direction.
You were just entertainment along the way
Or brief company, and victim of an illusion.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the Inner river

THE VAST DISTANCE

The deepest form of intimacy
is the sharing of truth.
Sex is not the highest form of intimacy -
Honesty is. No sleuth
can penetrate a false heart of lies.
No compass can navigate
the vast distance opened up by lies
that keeps hearts separate.

This distance cannot be closed by vicinity -
This distance can only be closed by veracity.


Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THROUGH HONESTY

Don’t be ashamed
Pour it all out
The heart is tamed
and freed from doubt
by the bravery of honesty.

Let those that hurt you
continue to mock you
It still cannot stop you
from healing through honesty
and growing through adversity.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

RIGHT THINGS

Do the right things
And do the things right
Spread your light wings
And make your wings light
Whatever the flight brings
Inner buoyancy brings flight
Up into the bright rings
Where happiness rings bright.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

FORGET IT

How humility can guide you
To find yourself if you let it -
How anger can ride you 
To death if you won’t forget it -

Forget it, it’s done and gone,
Your pain is the healing kind -
When you lost her, you won
A deeper heart, a higher mind.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

ASSUMPTION IS THE FILTER OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Realising you’ve been deceived
Is very hard to believe
Because it looked so real
How it made you feel
But that is the first rule of deception
It must never look like deception
When you look at a wolf clothed as a sheep
You don’t see a wolf clothed as a sheep
You see a sheep. Everything around you
Could be a cover created to confound you.
Our wishes, insecurities, vanities, memories,
Propensities - they all block our senses.
Assumption is the filter of consciousness.
Worse, presumption. Everything is a dress,
And who or what is wearing each dress
You will learn by experience as you progress.
But as you become more knowledgeable
You ironically also become more gullible.
You are stunned, as you learn and grow,
To realise there’s still so much you don’t know.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

TIME AND DEEDS

Only happiness can defeat sadness
Only honesty to oneself can defeat madness
Only goodness can defeat badness

Mirroring darkness is not our business
Rather for the Light we bear witness
And learn gradually to feel forgiveness

At a point words become meaningless
Whether we speak more or speak less
We’ll misunderstand each other nevertheless

Only time and deeds and steadfastness
Only consistency in human friendliness
Only self-control and gentlemanliness

Will grant our hearts again to each other access.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije 
Poems from the inner river