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
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
SUPERIORITY COMPLEX
Superiority complex Is inferiority complex Think about it Someone constantly trying to outdo you Means they feel constantly outdone by you Attempted demonstration of superiority Over you Is an indication of feelings of inferiority Towards you. When it happens on an individual level It is a curse But when it happens on a group level It is even worse It is a revelation of the collation of emptiness and of pettiness in the norm of human form. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
TARGETING THE VULNERABLE
They that came to remark the lines of destiny on our palms are still pulling the discords of smiles armed with sticky alms groping the vulnerable. They are legion. Their allegiance is with history and vision It is seasoned with wry reason when they call aid a mission targeting the vulnerable. The enmity is below the thought-line It is a volition seeded in culture Only one Dove visits in Love Every other dove is a vulture encircling the vulnerable. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
DUSKY
The wooded streets heavy laden with evening tears The dusk is wet with wanting well within her weathered years where everything longing meets maturity already wears with a battered beauty so haunting for the bruises it softly bears. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
NO HOLDING BACK
Do your poem
Like you do your woman
Like you do your man
Strong and Tender
Deep and Intense
Lovingly dismember
In the present tense
No holding back
Do your poem
Like you do them
That love you back.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
NO MATTER
No matter How many times I get used, I still can never get used To getting used. No matter how often Fake people take a liking To me, I never take a liking To their liking. No matter How often I be in love, I will never fall in love While standing in love. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
NO HOME AWAY
I walk through the valley of pain on my own
By the time friends come I’m already gone
I am All the colours between black and brown
Call me Africa or call me Diaspora, a birded song
Fly without perching, there’s no home away from home.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
GIVING
A broken heart is a portal to a misplaced chart of an immortal A soul bleeding is a soulful river It is quietly leading you to the Giver. To get you must give give humility The hardest way to live Purity, simplicity. The Giver’s Paradise is only for the giving even when he cries he is still forgiving. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
EASTER
Tear the woods open wide It is a painting windowed in our dream Spear not the canvas to the side The blood waters a never-ending stream That will move mountains on Sunday And roll a rock downhill Into the valley of time we chime Monday Death is dead. Peace, be still The innocent should never be crucified While the guilty die on their pen Never was indignity this undignified Justice thus unjustified by unmanly men The innocent will rise again Broken the frame of your crown of lies Sunrays that fall like drops of rain A Spirit is born when a man dies. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 