Poems

THE AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE

~ Che ~ 6 Comments

What do I write when
In truth I feel so insecure
Plagued by a thousand doubts and a thousand thoughts
Of things unanswered yet…

Ah! My mind is so terribly sharp! It cuts me everyday
Deep incisions of distrust and indecision –
Yet, out of them I grow…

There is a world of unanswered questions
A gap, in the middle of two stories
This gap is filled with our memories and dreams
A little part only of which we see… –

A Plague, a terrible plague
The restiveness of the human mind
It rages over the earth, devouring in numbers…
People fall victim, die in numbers –

A few survive, who live to tell the tale
Which the others shall call the masterpiece…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LINEAGE

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Look at the palm of my hand,
My lineage has run riot –
Griot! Take note!
For the palm is the root of our land.

Tapper, come down
from them high
intoxicating dread locks,

The Elders on the ground
Can see beyond the highest tree.
Tapper, come down
And tap your roots instead

Look at the palm of your land.
Before you boast, ask yourself if you really know
The back of your hand.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
(PALM LINES)

GIVE

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

The red cloud o’er the mountain is top
Beneath is white and the mountain-cap
A bird sings just one single note
O’er and o’er by rote:

To give is to get is to give is to get
O’er and o’er and o’er again
To give is to get is to give is to get
Sans chorus and sans refrain.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

PLANE FLIGHT

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An azure mind paints lightly the horizon
Its thoughts a cloudy mess
That grow old too quickly and fall to
Your knees from these incontinent skies

Like a stranger walking through the
Valley of the Shadow of Death
I trek noiselessly through my thoughts
And leave the plane-flying to the pilots

The reason why these things are writing me
Is because I have ripped out old pages
And need to be re-marked, re-bled, re-lined
For I have lost my old mind.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

URGE

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

I don’t know where I’m going with this
I am a footprint in the dark night
That keeps repeating itself
Endlessly, yet it’s going somewhere

It is a mystery to me why I ask
You to trust me, although I know
Neither the way nor the goal –
I know only the stubborn Urge in me.

And I know you are a part of this Urge
When it hurts you, it hurts me
I don’t know where I’m going with it
All I know is you’re coming with me.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

TWO URGES

~ Che ~ 6 Comments

When the sun comes up
You will regret the night
For the world is ruled by two strangers
And they both live in you

The night awakens one stranger
Seducer, traitor, philosopher, poet
Broken hearts heal sweet wounds
Everything is allowed

Illusion. When the sun comes up
The strangers change places
You cannot undo the night

You can only regret it
Or secretly savour the memory
Of it.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

A BEND IN THE ROAD BETWEEN GRASMERE AND RYDAL

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Lake Grasmere

My heart won’t stop beating
The urge to remember
A certain curve of the road
That leads out of Grasmere
Towards Rydal
Where the motor road and the lake
Part the wanderer’s feet
Step upon an earthen path that shall
Unhurrying though the trees
Curve the curving lake into the little bridge
At the lake’s dove tail, brought us
To the shore at the foot of a hill
Where, turning, we face
Far across Grasmere lake
The enchanting rough and tumble
Chained Cumbrian hills…

Like a worried teacher
Anxious that the fleeting pupil
Fully absorb what he, left alone
Must one day on his own remember
Drawn out of the depths of a retentive heart
That wasn’t deaf and blind
When it wandered this path, admiring nature
With such peculiar urgency does this curve in the road
Where the road and the lake separate
And the woods begin, stand
Before my inner eye
Like an evening star long after the Sun has died…
A trigger, for when I focus
On that turn of the road, I see again
The rest of the walk
That followed it
Continues to follow me.

A familiar friend
A giving, undemanding lover
A memory already more precious
Than Silver and Gold.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
(Cumbrian Lines: Poems inspired by the Lake District)

THE WALL

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Ten thousand windows
Without a latch –
The light streams in
Sound vibrates in
But there is no air
And so we die
The sun on our faces
The singing of the world in our ears.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE HEART WILL GROW

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When, blinding,
The sun’s rays, binding,
The sun’s gaze, finding its way
Through a window, minding
Your business for you, a dazzling hello
Like a friend’s caring
Like a friend’s sharing a heart
You shut tight your eyes tight
A moment –

When love won’t wane, won’t dim, won’t fall
When all you get is love, love, love
You bite back the tears of incomprehension
And open wide your soul –
What your eyes can’t bear, the heart can hold
The heart will grow, the heart will grow!

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

TENDERLY

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

I hold you tenderly
Like a precious thought
I sparingly share
Only with strangers

For they know not its worth
Will not rob me of it or its meaning or
Crush it to death like a writer
Crushes an idea in his mind –

Might be a butterfly
Might be a petal
Might be a story that would have changed minds –
Gone, unwritten, unspoken, unshared.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.