Only a few days after
And already, that magical laughter
Like a wall-painting, hanging in time
Over there, at the back of my mind…
I turn around with thoughtful eyes:
Time stands still; ’tis the spirit that flies.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems
MONEY
Money markets
The feet are far from the heart
Don’t get me started
I’ll never stop abusing you
I just can’t get enough of you
Why am I crying, you say?
I’m crying because my heart is cold
I’m crying because I feel no pain
I’m crying because I’m dying
And I don’t care.
I just like having it, owning it
Taking it, but I’m crying.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
JUST BEING I
She named me River
Because I whet her lowlands
In the hour of her drought
– I saw a palm tree
Hotly pursued by a multitude
Waving palms
But I did not understand
The power from which they sprung
Forth – must I understand?
Which sane river stops to understand itself?
Waters may rise to clouds to fall back as rain
But what woman rises from her heart to her head
To peer back down into her heart from her head
To understand herself
Without losing the misty way back to the dawn?
For she is mysterious yes it is complicated
As simple as a riddle
The flowing is the being, picture-perfect
It is frozen
Faster! Faster! Faster!
Breathlessly I never tire
The day she catches me
Is the day
She will lose her desire for me. For
She calls me River.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
FIRST NATURE
I feel you close
All those of you
Who love the rose
Within you too,
When you’re near
All is fair
As virtue
When you’re gone
Or I the bridge
Have again undone,
Built a ridge,
I forget you,
Call you untrue
And intrigue…
But deep within
My human heart,
Beneath the skin,
Another part
Still remembers
In the fire’s embers
Our start.
There’s more in nature
Than what we see
Behind your second nature
Search quietly
There’ll you’ll find
Behind your mind
Your first nature…
The one that feels
The beings unseen
The one that heals
In the worlds between
Every night
Weeps for the Light
Unseen.
I feel you close
All those of you
Who love the rose
Within you too –
I know you’re near
I almost hear
And feel you…
A bond of love
Unbreakable
Linked to the Dove
A sacred table –
All those who know
Don’t let it show…
The world calls it a Fable.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
POLITICS
You never let the sun rise
Without it too making a compromise
Truths are protected by subtle lies
Give a little, grieve a little
Always grease a lot, take it all
In the spirit of we-sacrifice
Taboo and sacrilege you court
Hiding from safe place to safe place
Waving to your constituent electorate
But wait!, it’s a game, right?
Well played. You won again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
WHO KNOWS?
The tension is mounting
The spring is wound
The wind is waiting
The tornado is forming, is coming
Is come.
Pain is the voice
Of the garden in you
Inviting you to come into it
There to discover the newest treasure
It has prepared for you
Upon its peaks.
How far can you go?
How long can you walk a path?
How come?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
PAPERMINT
They say twisted minds don’t believe
When the way is straight
They draw back suspiciously and
Wait for wile and guile, to smile
The stiff alarm I ignored you
New you were lying, but still old you close
Paperminting fresh notes, suckers
That will get laid but won’t get paid
Flesh throaters singing of tribulation
I love to whip your twisted mind
Tongue lashes, reams of read streams
Streaks you shriek! Dream lines of silence scream.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
SILENCE WILL ROLL INTO SILENCE
Silence will roll into silence
When your heart, for miles,
Lonely, clothed in the essence
Of sorrow shed in every sense
But one…,
Arises before your countenance
And, despite sorrow, smiles –
Fresh Food for your sustenance,
Fresh impetus for the long distance
You run…
Do you hear the rolling silence?
If you listen and listen hard
To Silence, the deeper bard;
Just listen, listen in hard…
Do you hear the rolling silence?
Silence will roll into silence
When the pain in you
Has crossed the line into convalescence
And the Horizon’s in view.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ALIVE
Alive in your grave
I hear your thoughts
Squirm
Unruffled by your
Poker mug
Two black stones
Sprout
On your grave head
Pierce my soul’s louvres
Shivers me alive.
Cold come forth
I need your warmth
– gently!
Exhume me…
With care.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
DON’T
There is a slitherer
Snaking without fear
For he owns your urges
Like thirst owns the night
Like Guilt owns sight
Like frustrations delight owning
Like we argued about seeking distance
And about seeking closeness
And said I don’t fucking care
Just so we would not say
I love you, you are mine
Don’t sleep with him, don’t sleep with her, Baby.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 