OVERCOMING

Not everyone who tries to kill you will succeed;

Your heart might bleed and bleed and bleed and bleed

But in the end you will find out you have simply been freed.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE MATTER

Do you see me,
I don’t see me.

Do you see you,
I don’t see you.

Do you see us,
I don’t see us.

Do you see them,
I don’t see them.

But do you see it,
I see it. It is all I see.

The objective, the goal
The constructive’s soul.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

CHANGING CLOTHES

People are like clothes
Sometimes we change them

Personalities are like clothes
Sometimes we change them

Consciousnesses are like clothes
Sometimes we change them

Places are like clothes
Sometimes we change them

Inwardly and outwardly
For similar reasons

And in between changing them
We are naked.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

LOVE, LOYALTY AND HONESTY

True love is given automatically
Irresistibly and totally
Without being demanded extraordinarily
Or exclusively.

Loyalty is given freely
Happily, personally and genuinely
Without being prompted forcefully
Or granted guiltily.

Only honesty is voluntary
It’s a choice, it’s not arbitrary
You decide deliberately in the sanctuary
Of your heart to be honest or to the contrary.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

GRASPING

Why don’t people recognise a great thing
And just take it when it comes their way?
Without hesitation, without doubting
The magic, just join in the game and play?

Maybe because it does not always
Come in the form we expect and want -
Because God’s Ways are not our ways,
Our intellect is sharp but our intuition is blunt.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

(NOT) YOURS

When it’s no longer yours
It doesn’t hurt if someone else has it,
It only hurts as long as it’s still yours
And someone else has it.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

CHOOSE

The Person I choose
Has to choose me too
In order for me to choose them
There is no us without you
Only me.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

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