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
personal development
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
WHAT WORDS CAN DO
I’ve learnt the hard way What words can do When I write or say Them to you. When I think you will read between the lines You read the lines, And when I think you will read the lines You read between the lines. Sometimes I think you will understand That I don’t really mean what I’m saying, But the words enter you and start to expand And exact a price I will long be paying. Because words carry life And words carry meaning, A word that cuts and kills like a knife May not be corrected by a word of healing. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
ORIENTATION
Don’t get used to the exhilaration, It is a bubble that will soon burst To be followed by the long deprivation And the unbroken thirst. Get used to the soberness instead, It will stay for longer than you hope And will be your daily bread With which you have to daily cope. I try not to yearn for the happiness, But the heart is treacherous; Unbidden it feels a new tenderness - This happens to all of us. And there are some pains you prepare for - They will always come, come back to you, For once upon a time it was you who tore It out of your heart and gave it a job to do. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
FIGHT FOR IT
You have to fight to be free - True freedom, inner freedom - Fight your fears and anxiety, The chains of your inner fiefdom; Fight your propensity and proclivity For weakening pleasure ; Fight your despondency And fight your insecurity With courageous Hope in equal measure. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
GOOD FOR THE SAKE OF YOU
When you do the right thing, you’re doing it for yourself. Always remember that. And let that be your motivation, your reward and your joy. Because you have to live with yourself always, and there is nothing worse than living with someone you don’t respect, someone you don’t trust, someone you don’t like and someone who is not in sync with you. And that person is yourself.
You are your own home, your own paradise or hell, and your own purgatory too in whom you have to recognise, discipline, purify and transform yourself. You are all you have. Handle yourself with care and with thought, with integrity. Any lesson you would like to teach your children one day, or wish you taught your children once upon a time, teach that lesson to yourself today. Lessons of character. Regard yourself as your first and last and only true child. If that child dies, you die.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
TAKE IT EASY
Possibilities of joy are ruined by probabilities of sorrow Today will annoy the hell out of the peace of tomorrow Stay simple Don’t believe the hype A tiny ripple won’t burst your pipe if you don’t turn it into a big wave - Worry is deceptive, don’t be its slave. Be simple in expectation Be simple in perception Be simple in deliberation Be simple in expression. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
LOOKING EVERYWHERE
When people find what they are looking for They find it’s not what they are looking for And then they begin to look for Clarity about what they are really looking for. And they look for clarity everywhere, In everything, in every way, they dare Every adventure, no matter how rare, Every experience that might get them there. Because the possession of clarity About one’s path and identity Is the actual meaning of true life-quality And the paramount shaper of reality. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
MY PATH
I‘m just on my lonely path But very few people know And even those that know Still don’t really know Because how can you know What I don’t truly show? The nature of my sorrow The depth of my flow For I still have many miles to go In my search for tomorrow And only I truly know The loneliness of my path. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 