Poems

AT HOME

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

When you already have
What you’re looking for
What are you still looking for?

What are you still living for?

Some live to find – when they find
Their life finds meaning

Some live to seek – when they find
Their life loses meaning

They must seek a new meaning
To their lives

To appreciate what you already have
To cherish it, to nourish it, to
Protect it, maintain it, value it and
Valorise it
Make something more out of something less.

Sometimes there is nothing better
Out there.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BEING GENUINE

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

A foolish student
Will one day become a wise teacher
An unyielding sinner
Will one day become a moving preacher

The gap that yawns in you today
Will be filled by the pain of growth
Perfection and Imperfection may look like opposites
But when they arise in you, embrace them both

Because you don’t know which is which
Who is really poor and who is really rich.

– che chidi chukwumerije.

DARKLIGHT

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

Strike the spirit
They long for pain
The pain of breathing and moving
When the very sun begins to rain
And they die in pleasure
And feel alive again.

And to feel the sunrain
Dry and wet on soul
Burning hot
And awakening stonecold
Clarity of perception
Through a hole came the whole.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LIVE WITH A STRANGER?

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

You cannot find like-minded people
Until you know your own mind
If you know not what you seek
You won’t know when you find
You will walk with your enemies
Your friends you’ll leave behind
You will feel no sense of belonging
Wherever you yourself bind
For without a sense of orientation
Or self-knowledge, you are blind.

And then there are those that will say:
You must stick to your own kind

So some stick to their race
And some to their nation
Some to religion and faith
Some to culture and tradition
Some stick to their gender
Some stay in a certain generation
Some remain within a field of thought
Or choose those of like inclination
Some share in an agenda
Some an intuitive perception

Some are united in what they seek
Some are united in what they find

Some will leave you when they find you
Because it is themselves that they seek
Some will seek you when they lose you
Because it was you who took them to their mountain-peak
And showed them their inner freak
Because – give me a break –
Who on earth does not secretly
Want to be a freak?

You like the taste of many soups
And are a part of many groups
And yet nobody knows who you really are deep inside –
Not even you yourself, with whom you always abide.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

ALWAYS THERE

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

I saw three things up in the sky
Two birds and the moon
The birds flew away
While the moon remained
For a few hours,
And then was also gone…

Will you make me a promise, love
Never to be gone?
But like the sky be always there
Even when all else is gone.

– che chidi chukwumerije.

BREAK COCOON

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

The tomb
Heaven’s womb
The womb
Death’s tomb

When did you stop caring?
When you stopped fearing.
Your life is a window you’re wearing
Your death is an illusion you’re bearing

You can break with your past
Without committing suicide
Look out and cast
Your nesting mast
And thinking nests outside
Out wide.

You are not
What you think you are
What they think you are
What you’ve been told you are
What you’ve never been told you are
Because you forgot.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE EARTH IS NOT MY HOME

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

The earth is not my home
Although she ever seems
To weave fine birds that her heights roam
Like I do in my dreams

The earth is not my home
Although she always tries
To spread bright hues across her dome
Like in my home’s blue skies

The earth is not my home.
However hard she plot
To dull my homesickness with foam
She in the end cannot

The earth is not my home
And yet I wander here
And know that when my end is come,
Strange, still I’ll shed a tear.

– che chidi chukwumerije.

BLESSED BE THEY WHO WORK IN THE FIELD

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

A smile, a wave, from where did it come?
From beyond the earth, or heaven, or where?
We feel it, we see it, reflect it here from
And spread it the earth round, here there, everywhere

Blessed be they who work in the field
Who work with their hands in the soil
Blessed be they who, yield after yield
And season on season yet toil.

The end, the start, the middle of work
Like fishers at sea, unceasing, we roll
Like all true handworkers who never ever shrink
The call and the urging perceived in the soul

Blessed be they who work in the field
Who link man and nature on earth
Blessed be they, in them doth life shield
The true future waiting for birth.

– che chidi chukwumerije.

HEART TOUCH

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Twice I touched her heart
So she cried

Once she cried
And then she cried no more.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SETTING MOON

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

The city is overcast with the blue mist of dawn
Swiftly fading
The street lamps of night
Hurriedly dwindling
Yesterday’s man
Softly gazing
A tiger’s cub at the setting moon.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije