THE OLD IN THE NEW

Every new thing you meet
Is an old thing to someone else
What to you is a new beat
Others have rocked from ever since

Your new love is someone’s old flame
Burning low but burning still
Because people stay the same
Captive to their former thrill

Battles you assumed were done
Suddenly resurface demanding review
Friends you thought were long gone
Suddenly come again to protect you

Nothing you meet is new
It is old to someone and to itself
It might even be old to you
But you simply don’t realise it yet.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SCROLLING

Lost in the detail
the news box jumps
into shudders of frenzy
Erratic loose bumps
unarmed with spiritual
context. Mind humps
matter mechanically
repeatedly aggressively
exhaustingly inconclusively
Algorithmically lumps
worldly with worldly opaquely
in ever thickening clumps
while scrolling thoughtfully
a nervous heart unsatisfactorily
seekingly nervously thumps.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

MORNING YEARNINGS

Good morning, true Morning,
Child of a Blue Night
Spent on an Island of Dawning
By a bright Dream light.

Invisible sun, I feel you coming,
Son of a celestial Height
Full of a gazillion suns roaming
Beyond earthly sight.

I saw you in my dream last night
My heart awakened and took flight
Driven by longing for a land of light
That called me, filled me, with delight

Good morning, new Morning,
Born of gentle Might,
Let the world be gripped by Yearning…
Let there be Light!

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

WORLD OF THOUGHTS

Imagine if there were
an invisible war taking place
In the world of thoughts,
A carnage whose only trace
Is this disharmony on Earth
That evades all correction
Whose roots seem omnipresent
And elude detection.

A parallel world, a prototype,
The way we think, our inner life,
Create the future we must face,
our world of woe and strife.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

BRUISED SOUL

A wild world
Full of gentleness and calm
Hot afternoon sun
Cool evening breeze, oh balm
Oh blow softly o’er my bruised
Soul, my used, confused palm
Craving a crisp clasp, my blues’d
Memory of belonging to you
Briefly ellipsed –
Briskly eclipsed by re-longing for you.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

NATURE’S MIX

The red leaves
The brown bricks
The orange clouds
The yellow sticks
The evening hues
Illusion kicks
in blended reality
My mind’s tricks
Make me feel
Nature’s magic mix.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

MUSIC MADE ME

Music made me sad
Sadness made me glad
Gladness made me bad
Badness made me mad

Madness made me make music

Music made me sad
Sadness made me glad
Gladness made me bad
Badness made me mad

Madness made me make music

Music…

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

BRAVE THE LINE

Brave spirit, brave the line
Between present and future,
You’ll be just fine -
Braving the new is human nature.

Imagine a world turned around
Where the servant becomes the master
And those who were bound
Now run ahead, moving ever faster.

A time where crime is shamed
And virtue claims the highest rewards
And you won’t be blamed
For honest mistakes moving forward.

This future is yours to imagine
Yours to embody, yours to achieve
And it starts crystallizing
Today with the way you live.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

EVOLVING

Always absorb the pain
And move on but resolve
To one day love again -
That’s how hearts evolve.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE THINGS YOU SAID

You cannot grow back a flower that’s dead
You cannot stick back leaves already shed
My mind has heard, my heart has bled
You cannot take back the things you said.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river