There is still so much to draw from
So much love
It becomes easy if
You don’t pair it with Ambition.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems
THE BEST
Don’t save the best for the last
Take the best first
And make the best of the rest.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
WITH STANDING ON THE PUNISHMENT OF SOCIETY
The scar whipped
The back proudly
The ground is stepping on me
Yes I will die standing up
If you thirst for freedom then
Feel free
To bury me standing
Upright –
Only slaves prostrate before their executioner!
If the ground stands on me
Well, so will I too.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
From “Palm Lines”
THE GRACE
Though disgraced
I will not lose my face
I will raise it
that the sun
may shine on me.
Every fibre of my being
Every corner of my soul
Every song of my spirit
Will become new –
for the flames of the sun
have killed me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
THE GREATER DEATH
Literature murders poetry
Fine Arts murders art
Education murders the spirit
The intellect stands victorious over the intuition
The dead over the living
The darkness over the light
Human is dead for now
Tomorrow human will die the greater death.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
YOUNG AND OLD
Suffer not the young with belief in their ignorance
Thinking only the old can with wisdom be soaked
Watch: and see kids give to hidden truths substance
For what is a child but an adult cloaked
And seek not in the old for the seat of all staleness
Sure that, with youth passed, all vigour is lost
Look past the frame at a quicker, higher freshness
For what is an adult but a child unveiled
The child is the parent of the out-born adult
The adult is the parent of the in-born child
For up looks the earthling and up looks the moonling
And each sees nothing but the other in the skies
So suffer not greatness with the label of complexity
Nor suffer ordinariness with the verdict of the rejected
For where the great and the ordinary meet, simplicity
Is born, adult and child unite, and Perfection is reflected.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
YOU SAID
You said you were coming
I said I’d be waiting
You said you wouldn’t be long gone
I said I’d be waiting
You said it was only temporary
I said I’d be waiting…
Nine breaths
Nine years
Nine life-times
And I’m still waiting.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
WHERE ARE YOU?
Where are you?
There is a song in my head
Yearning to be sung to you
There is a thirst in my Soul
Waiting to be quenched by you
There is a smile in my heart
Longing to be smiled at you
So where are you?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
STRIVING
I strive
Therefore I am
I am not
Therefore I strive
Striving is the beginning
And striving is the end
And when the end is over
And I am over with striving
I shall ascend
A smile on my lips
Because the end is the beginning
And the beginning is the end
So long as I am the made
And not the Maker
Besides “Dawn can never be reached
Save by the path of night”*
And there again I shall strive again
For striving is living is joy.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
(*Kahlil Gibran)
NIGHT RAIN SUN SHINE
Give me nightrain
Or give me pain
Still will I smile and smile again
Bring me sunshine
Or bring me ease
Still will I cry and never cease.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 