He’s lying in the midst of his toys
And what language do they speak
To one another? They seem to understand
Each other. It’s his smile
That makes me strong.
I’m glad he can’t interpret my frown
When I look out of the window
Into the world, into the times –
Yes I’m glad for him
Let him store happiness in his heart today.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije..
Jokes are the barrier
People let down between themselves
A spoken word can wash away years of building
Leave in its wake a ruptured earth
Worse than as if life never happened.
Watch that joke, it’s no joke
The damage will outlive the laughter
Long long after
The careless word you spoke.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
They will pull you back
They are afraid of…
Anything that moves!
Long shackled pain and fear
Madden the mind
Time stands still
The tempted, fallen, becomes
The tempter
Learn to recognize them
The source of your pain
The source of your freedom
Movement!
There was a girl
the fruit of her labour
Was the world
With a cry of pain and a shout of joy
She gave birth to the world
And primitive was the world
Harsh the lips that burned her nipples
Rough the tongue that broke her word
And we’re still here today
The earth is still not enough
Mother has become a stranger
The outcasts have grasped their destiny.
-Che Chidi Chukwumerije..
Pick with care
The enemies you bear
When the unexpected is near
They shall be there
To crown you.
When true friends
Step off the boat
Curious, how the river
Turns your coat
Around you.
Clear your throat
Vomit when no-one is looking
Regurgitated oaths
Pressure-cooking
Sunbrowns you.
If diplomacy
Be their tactless god
How shall he decipher
Your non-committal nod,
Proud you?
But brave soldier
It is the art of war
To live on in pages
Of folklore
Unbound to you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There are many roads
But only one will lighten your load
The question is
What price are you prepared to pay?
Life gave me a lemon tree
A pinch of love will feed the multitude
The bearer of the word will walk on wind
And disappear unseen, grateful to have simply been
Himself.
What price are you prepared to pay?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Souls stranded at sea
Search-pilots say they are ghosts
Whisping like clouds on frothing waves
But fishermen swear they are worried human faces
Who approach with one plea:
To send one last message back home
Before they vanish:
It will be well
Until we meet again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Once so deep, now so shallow
Once never walking the path I now follow
My farm lies fallow
Another dimension
Same old sung in a new key
Sharps, naturals, empty flats
We’ve moved house, you, I
I like it that there is no barrier
In between
My view into your eyes, your view into my heart –
It gives me hope
Furnishes me with counterproof more powerful
Than the deliberations of thoughts
Did you renounce anything for this love, this hour, this
Life? – The words grow stronger
The more I write; the light grows brighter
Within the night, beneath the descending Halo.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Her glance was taffeta
Smoothed down my trembling hands
Smoothed down my trembling hands
Oh morning glory
Oh these tremors have passed and
I’m asleep again on a Saturday morning
In the birth cradle of April.
Fresh rain, burgundy tears sprinkle sun, sprinkle dawn
Rainbows, silver and gold fingers
Then palmgreen sprouting hope hope
Then palmgreen sprouting hope.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When I started to interact with you
Little did I understand
That true friendship is an addiction
Too hurtful for lonely people
Metamorphosis from yesterday’s amnesia
To today’s cage of painful memories
Was like dawn that swiftly recedes
Unobserved.
The numbing melody of a thousand shards
Crashing to the splintered ground
Is a sad song
Yet I must dance alone.
Life has petalled pain
With the scent of a red rose
A caged rainbow beats in my chest
Like Harmattan waving goodbye to the rains.
-Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 