To encompass a mighty tale
Within the letters of a little poem
Little sentence, little phrase
One little word
To start with the clue and end with the question
To give the world in every act
To live a life never lived before
By you.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
The hot burning
The lust turning you on
The engine churning
The drive yearning to come
Intuition discerning
Twixt the journeying weeper
And the earning
Of the learning reaper.
– che chidi chukwumerije
Pain kills
Pain heals
Pain thrills
It steals
And wills
And feels
And it chills
When pain rhymes
It rhymes with the times
And when it doesn’t
It doesn’t matter
Pain only rhymes when it matters.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
I’m alive
When I was dead
The words flowed
Knocking knocking in the coffin
Now I’m alive
They hold their peace
I don’t write my fantasies anymore
I live them now
When I start writing again
Pity me. Mourn, mourn for me.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE
Duet with Helenvalentina
On the morning I ached
For the memory of the night
When my soul within was stricken
Before ineffable light
And the face of one remembered
Was unutterably bright
In the mounts of memory
Hidden, this valley
Where you sang a sun
To birth, rise in glory
Spirit of immortality
Half-seen-and-unseen you pull me
From these ancient hallways
I witnessed the reign
Of a long yearned for god child
Returned to this plain
And I fell, not from weakness
But from fervour regained
And yet in truth we both know
‘Tis all half-truth and metaphor
Cloaking what it claims to unveil
Our thirst for less and more
Less of hide-and-seek
And more of flame and fervour
Ah and here the sweet pain
That rends through my soul
The numinous so fleeting
To encompass us whole
And yet then it’s just whispers
Where shadows unfold.
———————————————-
by Helenvalentina and Che Chidi Chukwumerije
———————————————-
She loved him
Not because he was
Something out of the ordinary
But because he was so ordinary
He touched and massaged the ordinary
In her.
She loved him
Not because he amongst all human beings
Stood the most out
But because he was concealed in the crowd
Offered her the quiet refuge
In which she could peacefully shelter herself
In him.
She had a deep need to love somebody
That was why she loved him
For no other reason
Than that he could be quietly loved
In a world of their own, far
From the looking crowd
He was the answer to her quiet prayer.
She let out a long, deep sigh
It sounded like a moan
A deep-throated groan
Accompanied by breathlessly running tears
And the unquantifiably precious feeling
Of satisfaction
Relief
And held him in her arms
Held him tightly, loosely, in her heart
Dear him.
He swallowed, moved to the core
And loved her back
What he had always yearned for
All his life.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
The children come out to play
And all is happy and gay
In the month of May.
The farmers make their hay
In the shinning sun’s ray.
Hand in hand as they go their way
Young lovers whisper what they have to say
On their way to hear the new priest pray.
And following the song of the stock-bird jay
Gentle old couples of yesterday
Quietly remember their youth today.
The essentials will stay
When all else goes away.
This is the song in the heart of May.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
If ever there come upon you the shadow
Of the widow on the moon’s dark window,
Resist the urge it will urge upon you
To put the knife to your own heart
And die –
If you cannot resist it
Channel it into the bowels of the sea –
Remember:
The shadow will pass away someday
And you will be brighter than ever before.
The woman on the dark side of the moon
Will be out-done by the woman
On the other side of the moon,
The bright side,
Where the light of the sun has ever dwelt
And never died.
There is a woman on the lightside of the moon
And she is coming, and coming soon.
Just hold on, dear, just hold on a while,
A little while longer and soon we’ll smile.
If you go the first mile,
I promise to go with you the extra mile.
Just one more mile, and soon we’ll smile.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
How great
Is the greatest man
If he cannot even carry a bucket of water
To his thirsty friend?
If he cannot even put a broom in his hand
And sweep the dustied driveway
With humility of heart?
How great
Is the greatest woman
If she cannot even say hello
To a person she deems to be a class lower?
If she cannot ignore the supposed mockery
Of soceity for the sake of a moment
Of truthfulness to herself?
How great is greatness
If it has no humility?
Even smallness
Is greater
Than such greatness.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
The Crack was so loud
We actually failed to hear
The piercing cry
We are dying even whilst they die
You struck me hard
You were hellbent on killing off
All the love in me
So that you could point at my corpse, my heart
And me the coffin housing it
And declare:
You see! He was dead all along!
And everybody will nod wisely
You cannot murder a dead man.
Africa vanished like smoke in the wind
And left Africa behind
Battling the barrenness you and I…
Strangers stood back
Watched us tear one another to pieces
And when we’re through
They’ll step in calmly and calmly pick up the pieces
And build anew an other Africa again
Their Gain
Empty of all Africans
Biafrans and Nigerians
Hutus and Tutsis, Zulus and Xhosas.
Holy Warriors,
Nationalists, Traditionalists, you
And I
And all that will remain
As a memory of a people that once was
Are the poems and songs we
Left behind…
Even the slogans will be forgotten.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 