TRAVELLER TRUTHS

The Truth can only be found
By those who are seeking it
A mistake can only be learned from
By those who are making it
Full exposure is only feared
By those who are faking it
A road can only be understood
By those who are taking it
The Truth can only be echoed
By those who are speaking it.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

RESTLESSNESS

Good Morning
To every urge that always makes you get up;
Good Morning
To every discomfort that has never let up;
Good Morning
To every dream that lifts your head up;
Good Morning
To every memory that makes you fed up
With lying down lamenting and self-compromising
While the day is dawning and the sun is rising;
Good Morning to restlessness,
The twin-partner of purposefulness.
Get up! and keep seeking to reach, or grasp, the Horizon -
No matter what you have found before
There is always something more.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

Read also the book: THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING MORE

HOPE TO BE FOUND

Line your pockets with seeds of hope
Find purpose when you secretly grope
through your hidden emotions, touch
one, touch all, no emotion is too much,
no matter how intense. The deeper
the grip, the closer it is to the reaper -
And you are the reaper of what you sow.
Empty your pockets of what you know
As you walk the road leave a flower trail
The Grail finds you if you seek the Grail.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

TALK LESS OF TALKING

How do you move from talking everyday
To never talking at all? Say. Say. Say.
Because speaking about each Problem,
the say, is how to begin to solve them.

But what if speech is the problem and
Silence is the only solution close at hand?
What if talking everyday is too much
And the pauses bring the deeper touch?

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

PASS IT ON

If you think of how many times
God has forgiven you…
So many sins, so many crimes
God has forgiven you…
In this and in former lifetimes
God has forgiven you…

You would have more compassion
for your fellow humans’
crimes of reason and sins of passion.
For your fellow humans
you would reduce your judgement’s ration.
For you’re fellow humans.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

GOING SOLO

Once he doesn’t care anymore
All the beauty in the world becomes a bore
Every tender touch pinches a sore
Promises of true love sound like folklore.

He walks out forever through the door
He totally overturns what he is living for
When he has been wounded to the core
Every woman now seems to him to be a whore.

Fitting in with the act turns into a chore
He rips off the mask which once he wore
The mask his heartbreak from his heart tore
And breaks away from the naive days of yore.

An angel or a demon? Neither nor.
Be yourself or die trying? Either or.
Whatever else life may have in store
He’ll carve his own way now to heaven’s shore.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

SEX IS SECONDARY

Sex is secondary
Mission is primary
It is not who shares your bed
but who shares your path you should wed
Or you’ll suffer the aftermath.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW

If you want to know if people love you,
strip yourself of all lustre, rizz and fanfare,
like the trees shed their leaves in autumn,
so naturalness lays the human heart bare.

If you want to know if people accept you,
be yourself right from the very start,
not from the middle and not at the end,
your truth will expose the truth in their heart.

If you want to be free of pressure in your life,
tell people your truth as early as you can;
once they know and accept you as you are,
you can then live freely as your own human.

If you want to know how you really are,
remove your mask and exhibit your true self.
From people’s reactions over time you will honestly know
whether to change, or to continue to be, yourself.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

GOODNESS FIRST

When you whet the dry water wheel
It churns your mind and turns your thoughts
From stone to bread for the unfed
Soul food for those well-bred
With longing, because longing is the art
Of belonging to the wellspring of intuition.

Then you will love the Good
More than you love the hood
More even than you love your blood
For Good alone is of God;
Hood is human, blood is earthly -
Without goodness they are empty.

Goodness above all. Goodness first.
Be good, for it will quench your thirst.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

EASY PREY

You call yourself, proudly, a man,
Fiercely, loudly, a Black man!
Prey. Easy prey. You are easy prey.

Because you stand alone
Because you mourn on your own
Because you don’t show your brother
Just how much you silently suffer
Because you compete against each other
In envy instead of bonding together
Under the attacks of all those
Who consider you their subhuman foes.
Prey. Easy prey. You are easy prey.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river