DRIFTED APART

The truth must not only be true
But it must also appear to be true -
Or it will look like a lie.

You must not only be you
But you must also act like you
Or you will feel like a lie.

A small shift
A big rift
Swift

A brief lift
A Greek gift
Drift.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

LIKE A FLOWER THINKS OF THE SUN

Think of forgiveness
Like a flower thinks of the sun
With gratitude nonetheless
For a story time once upon
For pain is the power to bless
Forevermore for if ever done
Let anguish be my shorn redress
Torn away, for Done! is foregone
Revenge and mercy both make a mess
But mercy makes the earthier one.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

TAKE YOUR PAIN

Take your pain
Don’t run from it
Again and again
Welcome it
You will gain
From the purge
And after the rain
A new you will emerge.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

BADLY

I‘m hurting so badly
It’s driving me mad
And making me sad
I’ll take the bend gladly.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

Poems from the inner river

EMERGING

The more my eyes fail
The better I see
The more my knees flail
The faster I flee
And the farther I go
I thought younger was stronger
But that was a long long time ago.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

CRAVINGS

When they‘re done with you
They hate you
For showing them their darker side
And showing them how much they love it.

Never talk to them in the open
Only in secret
That‘s when they love you
That‘s where they crave it.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

WALKING WOUNDS

We are all walking wounds
Chimeras and Illusions trigger us
And then we fall into a deep hole
Lashing out at shadows that don‘t exist
And hurting real people who never hurt us
And who don’t know why we‘re hurting them
Inside them where they walk their own wounds.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

EAGLE AT HEART

Landing in Barcelona

Sun-burnished
The sea slit
The morning lit up
Furnished my wit
The varnished mirror beneath me crawls
And over-yonder my sun it calls
Back tarnished memory bit by bit.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

CLOUDRUSH

Cloudy alps
A river of clouds
rushed through a corridor of mountains proud -
If a giant had stood there, no doubt
he has just poured
his feelings outwards, towards
some distant gourd that holds
some distant fjord.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

PLANE OVER CLOUD VALLEYS

Overflying the alps

Clouds nestling between the
dark craggy mountains,
sitting in the valleys like velvet cushions –
Silent solemn sentinels rising upwards,
peaks to greet these metal intrusions –
I wonder if they think we are just fleeting illusions.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije