Like the lost letter
I sent to you – the postman never said
It never arrived
And I’m still waiting
For your unsuspecting reply
And yet it is you who are waiting
For me on the other side.
How can coplanar souls lose sight of each other?
Their calls echo leeward and die unheard.
How can planes fly into the wind and disappear
And leave gaping wounds behind
Lost at sea?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Like a glove
Her palm fit into mine
I saw her struggling
With the shock
Recognition brought.
We tried to decipher our fate
But saw neither
Its beginning nor its end
The flask has gone out of the djini
Tracing the palm groove…
Ever the palms
Lining our every path
Kissing our everything
Wild trees become a garden, untamed…
A jungle becomes a park, intriguing…
The rivers are wetting the vallies
We clasp hands and become a palm nation.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Not like that.
Crown the valley.
The hilltop is smoking.
Smoking gun.
Chewing gum.
Nonchalantly tracing and caressing your
Archipelago of feelings
Like a toy ship
Boning the corset
Gargle your gift of gab
Smiling to the ravine
Love is an aspic
Softly, steer
Softly, stir
Softly, pick
Softly, kill.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
What yesterday I pushed away
Returns today, stronger
With even more hunger
Songs that I must play.
I have to move
Fly like a dove
Driven by love
I have to remove
Myself from illusion
Confusion.
Unfinished Verses stare at me
Repeated Verses endlessly.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
So, your enemy
Disguised as a friend
Separated you from
Your real friend, in the end.
Well, it’s all good, it’s all good
Wear not regret as a crown of thorns
Love those you have today.
What use is the morning’s advice
If you understand it only in the evening,
When it’s too late
You think?
The day is already gone
Well, it’s all good, it’s all good
Love the night too
The moon is a growing sun.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
What is this haze?
My mind becomes a maze
My feet remember their ways
By memory always –
The things we learned by heart
Shall be the surest chart
In our last days
The Adult becomes a child anew
And sees what the child once saw in the morning Dew.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
The quiet is defeaning
It bursts your eardrums
Eery and foreboding
Who will make the first move?
Who will change sides?
What is really happening?
History, like a confused child
Keeps coming back home
Looking for its parents
History, like a boomerang
Circles and circles the raised hand
Waiting for peace and rest.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The end must be strong
Or it will not be satisfied with itself
Shall return again
And again
Demanding to be ended…
The end that drags out must be allowed to drag out
That way we shall never forget
It is imprinted, chiselled, branded prime-deeply
Into heart and mind
Unforgettable, memorable, forever recognisable
Never to be dared again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There are thoughts that define
And there are thoughts that defy…
There are hearts that deny
Hearts that desire
And hearts that never run dry –
And there are hearts
That run dry –
But I won’t cry.
There were thoughts that struck me
Thoughts that thunderstruck me
And left me dumbstruck –
These are the thoughts that stuck to me…
But if we say sometimes yes
Sometimes no
Sometimes…
Yes sometimes no sometimes yes.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The words will still be the one
The one to articulate Silence
When we sing the praises of Silence
We do so with words
The strange bird will still be the one
The one to carry your story forward
Even though you ostracized him
He will preserve your story
When strangers rule the world.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 