You were there I saw you even if many others did not You were there I saw you even if even my eyes did not You were there I saw you. I saw you in the swelling of my heart In the paths that my thoughts did chart I saw you, for they were thoughts of thee. Thoughts of all those things which Thou art The origin, the beginning, the head, the start I saw you in my sensing of eternity. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Poems
YOU ARE THE ONE I‘M THINKING OF
The light goes on and off like a shivering bulb in a cold room Your heart is not enough to beat back the nocturnal bloom Dawn, the dusk is tough the mother of both glow and gloom Lover, your mouth is rough when you kiss at night you don’t know whom Shadows long call your bluff but your birdsong cries out mushroom I’m you’re d’healer I’ve got the good stuff sweeping you off your feet like your bride broom Yes, you are the one I’m thinking of When the new moon starts to wax and loom. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
THE FORGOTTEN YOU
How could I forget you?
And forget that I forgot you?
Even this I forgot.
Forgot your face
Forget your eyes
Forgot your ways
Forgot our ties
Forgot the words we spoke in the night
Forgot the cadence of your voice’s delight
Forgot your touch, so deep, so light
I did not even remember you as a dream
You just were never there it would seem
Memory is a fast-flowing vanishing stream.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
LONGING WITHOUT BELONGING
Half me half you I became because of you Neither me nor you I remain and so do you If I became fully me And you became fully you Would there be any similarity Between me and you? For the urge that binds us Is the urge than divides us We are similar in longing But dissimilar in belonging. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
DON’T HURT
The things that should hurt Don’t hurt, why not? I thought I cared a little - I guess a little is not a lot. In the private part of the public, What a plot dem a plot; In the public part of the private, I’ll continue to get shot. I have seen through it all, Through us all and through our rot. Even as I strive, faith in God is the only thing I’ve truly got. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
POEMS FROM THE INNER RIVER
It’s flowing beside me, the inner river, and I’m fishing poems from it everyday. This project is the English parallel to “Das Jahrzehnt der deutschen Dichtung”, also to be found daily on this blog.
Live while you’re alive, Che.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
26.05.2025
IN YOUR WORLD
In your world I’m weird I write poems everyday Money to me is not wealth Politics is an illusion they play Religions are superficial God is different from what they say Intimacy is often artificial Your way is not my way I don’t attach, I don’t detach I seem to neither go nor stay And yet somehow I still touch You much deeper than they. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
A DEEPER SURVIVAL
The more the world is flooded with A.I., the more I hunger for natural things - Natural images honest to the human eye, a genuine human voice that sings - Content that springs from the human “I”, what the original human spirit brings - The truth’s rough edges, not a smooth lie, the exertion that with evolution swings - The more the world is overwritten by A.I., the more I gravitate towards natural things. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
SMALL IS BIG
Did you ever notice? When we become small, smallness becomes big to us. Both in rightness and in wrongness. Those who have reduced themselves in bondage to materialism become totally convinced that matter is the boundary of realism. But those who have humbled themselves to serve the small inner voice are content to be invisible in fulfilling that in which their spirits rejoice If you love flowers, flowers are big to you If you crave power, power is big to you If you are petty, pettiness is big to you If you are virtuous, the virtues are big to you. And someone doing a very small thing will sometimes look big to you While someone doing a very big thing will sometimes look small to you. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
POINTS OF VIEW
You just assume it’s true Because it’s native to you You just assume it‘s true That my blue is your blue But my blue is really very red rises like blood rose to my head While your blue is green instead the leafy verdure of a flower bed Neither your blue nor mine Is truly blue or azure or divine The blues we see are but in line With our maturity, depth or shine Yet you simply assume it’s true Because yours is native to you You assume that I’m seeing blue Just because it looks blue to you. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 