RELATIONSHIP WITH REALITY

All I can tell you is this,
Never entertain liars in your life.
No matter how painful reality is,
Let the Truth always be your wife
Or husband. Not a human or a face
But Truth itself should be your true spouse,
Permanently nourishing you deep within you.
Not a building, not an edifice or a space
But the Truth itself should be your real house,
Permanently protecting you deep within you.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

WHEN THE WOUND DOESN’T HEAL

When the wound heals outside
Without healing inside
Baby you are beautiful inside and outside
Your smile is open wide
But your heart, the one that cried
But your heart, the one that lied
But your heart, the one that died
Is closed up on the inside
And will continue to pretend and to hide…
Your laughter is it pain or is it pride?
Lonely bride
You are a lonely bride.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

WHEN YOU STOP WANTING

When you stop wanting to know everything,
You start knowing what to really want;
When you start wanting to grow into winning,
You start growing, focused, up and to the front.

Never forget the kind of people and things
That rejected you when you were nobody and nothing,
Your knowledge of them shall be the wings
That shall fly you over obstacles into your blessing.

Absorb the pain and become serious,
Trudge through the terrain no matter how tedious,
Be your true self and you’ll be mysterious,
And never return to all that was injurious.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DIFFERENT STORIES

The story is always told differently
From how it really happened
Because the story was experienced differently
From how it really happened
By everyone to whom it really happened
Even while it really happened
To everyone to whom it really happened
Like it never really happened.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

CHANGE LEADS

Change leads to more change
Every trigger triggers another trigger
When life wants to rearrange

Your life and make it even bigger
It uses sudden change and surprise
Pain is an inconsequential by-product

Or a tool, a school, but the real prize
Is your next level waiting to be unlocked
So embrace change that refuses

To be refused and powers itself through
And challenges you and confuses
You and transforms you into a higher you.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SERVICE

In the morning when the sun arises
A light shall also dawn within you,
A clarity that intrinsically recognises
What on Earth you are supposed to do -

To awaken to service to the good,
For kindness, honesty, courage and humility
Are life’s deeper nourishment and food
And the template of humanity.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

YOU KNOW

Go at your own pace
Let no one hurry you
Your life has deeper value
Than just to be in a race.

Frame your own narrative
Own your own story
Share your own memory
Everybody’s is selective.

Only you know
Deep within your soul
Your heart’s true goal
You alone know.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

BAY OF HEART

There is always something to say
And no one to say it to
The heart is a deep wide bay
Where stories and strangers sail into
To quietly offload, sit and recuperate
Locked in the soliloquy of the seeker
The pain-cooked rebirth to elevate
Phoenix back to Light in a world grown bleaker.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner rivero

HEALED BROKEN

It’s not as easy as you think
Some bones heal in their broken position
Yes, they don’t hurt anymore
But they will never again make the same old motion
And you will never again feel the former emotion.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DENIED

If you died
Right now
Ask yourself
What have you lied
To yourself
About.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river