I wonder
How it will be
On the day I die –
Will I hear that music?
This whole journey
What has it been worth
If I don’t hear that music?
If tomorrow
Will unteach me how to hear that music
Then take me today, dear Lord…
If today I am still deaf
To that music
Then guide me to the source
Of that guitar, and teach me how to grasp
Thine song, Lord, before my day
Is come.
As empty as life is
Even emptier is death
Without music.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
You make me richer
The more I give to you
The well fills the pitcher
Lovingly. This is from me to you
Sings the well, a wishing well
No coin can grant the wishes
That kindness will, a kindness well
Your heart, a table of rare dishes
More profound than profundity
Wiser than the wisest sagacity
Where it stops – the world – there begins
Aye there begins Friendship, and wins.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
How many will survive when the drones
Say Hello
When a young lady, barely out of
School, is fingering somewhere a hidden button
And a closed-minded kid, for whom
The world is a distant myth
Sits for ours masturbating a joystick?
Their message is a drone
Their package death faster than the
Speed of sound –
How many will survive when the mad
Men on the other side also get their hands
On the deadly secrets of death?
How many will survive to teach tomorrow?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
You have to go deep
To decipher the truth within
Deep enough to be unable
To come out again. Catch 22.
Then you will ask yourself
What use is the knowledge
If you cannot use it
To free yourself from the truth.
But humanity kicks in
The instinct for self-preservation
Some call it the third eye
The inner voice, the sixth sense.
Reason says go left
Yet your feet turn right
There is an inner road
That leads through the night.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There is a lonely patch of plateau
Hidden away on the mountain highs
Behind the windstrong oaks
Betwixt twin peaks
It is where we parked peace, away
From sight
A sore spot in our memory.
Like a dark crack between two Valleys
Ass cheeks you burn to scratch
The world’s buttocks hidden away too
Is shifting restively restlessly because
There is an itch down there, a mad itch
And its name is war.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
This Grail they’re all searching for
How far away it must really be
’Cause they never seem to find it –
Seems to be even farther away than true love
And the ability to love truly and unselfishly…
Now how far away must that be?
I have heard
That there are some people somewhere
Many people in many places
Looking for the Grail…
This Grail they’re all searching for
How far away it must really be
’Cause they just never seem to find it –
Far far far away.
I cannot find it, but can it find me?
If I find Love, will it find me?…
Will it show me the way to it
And show itself to me?
The eternal Call of the Grail…
This Grail we’re all searching for
How far away it must really be
‘Cause we never seem to really find it.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I have lived here
Once before
I know
Upon the blue mountain
On the island of songs
In the kingdom of a thousand suns.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Hardly a night goes by
Hardly a breath flows, an evening
Melts
Without this thought
You brighten my life
Curly windows
When the crowds are many
I am alone
I wanted to be a nightingale
To be a flower
I wanted to be a star
The evening wind blows
I am human. Let it be…
Sometimes again
Freed from the city’s shackles
Hackles, hard tackles
I am green, bright yellow, blue as sky
Glad am I.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I want the lines of your palms
Written in my diary
My future lives
As though they were already past
My days numbered
My deeds counted
And when I scoop your two palms to my face
Inhale your peroxide breath
Exhale my soul, blue kiss
Your eyes, too round full moons
Have dawned on me with undisguised thoughts
Warning me:
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I’m looking at a person in the mirror
He mirrors my thoughts but not my actions
We stare each other quietly in the eye
Then I hide the mirror again in my closet
And walk away
I can no longer look at my reflection.
For it shows my weakness and my fear.
It’s as if the picture that paints my surface
has been discolored by my truth.
There will be no sun without a morning
There will be no lake without a mirror
If I claim to be dead, then I’m still alive
The frozen spark trapped inside is a spirit outside
Looking in
Grasping for what seems like eternity
to the small amount of existence I have left.
Aching for the courage and strength to
break through the barrier of acceptance.
Continuously wishing for hope to surround me.
And so shall it be, I touch myself
My lows, my highs, my spark,
The mirror cracks, the image is gone
Because I have come.
– (Che Chidi Chukwumerije / Deana Burson)
***
This is a duet I did with Deana at My thoughts on the subject are as follows.
If you havent read her work yet, please do. She is a restless writer with a gifted imagination.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 