They shrink away instinctively
Disgustedly
From the poor
As though poverty were a disease
But even faster they
Avert their thought-sprinkled eyes
Nobody wants to see Shame
The shame mirrored within
Who is ashamed of whom?
Of what?
The rich is ashamed for being rich
The poor is ashamed for being poor
They both are ashamed of being
In the company of each other
One hopes the tides will turn
One fears the tides will turn.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Daily my heart weeps
My soul is drenched in a river
Flowing with thoughts of you
Of late I have become
A fisherman
Richly rewarded for my toil
Bravely diving into the lake of love
Daily my heart weeps
With joy.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
The entire I gave
While smallness was all
She ever wanted.
But the rest of me thirsts too.
When frivolity was laughing
At its own shadow
I warned
That my heart was dripping…
When superficiality was doing the maths
Around its own tunnel vision
I insisted
My heart is dripping out…
When cunning was blind to the metaphor
Of its own despair
I fell silent
And listened to the sound of bleeding feet
Walking away.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I know they get in your way
They try to tell you we don’t belong together
They force you to lead a parallel existence
We’re living double lives
But behold a paradox:
In the lakes of their knowledge
You came up ignorant
In the garden of your ignorance
They found the seeds of knowledge
Who reinvented you?
Someone surely did
And it certainly wasn’t you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Simultaneously..
How does that work?
When the moon is the only light
She must not be ashamed of her nakedness
If the sun feels he is so great
Well, where is he at night
When we need him the most
To keep away?
Look not upon your faults
When you laugh, let it come
From deep within and make
Your tears jealous.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I see only nothing –
Emptiness has suffocated the world.
Hollowness on the inside…
Bring yourself to the fore
And stop hiding like a scared animal
In the darkness of your fear of societal assumptions.
Stop being a learned act on the stage of life –
Stop being a masquerade in the market-place of shared dreams…
Be yourself!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
My heart weeps, a baby
Another mountain stream
Seeking a lake
After which it longs, a Lover
Longing for completion
During the course of a life-long journey
Into the eternal sea.
My heart cries for that presence
That was his quiet audience
On a walk across a Valley
In a Cumbrian mystery –
Spirit, I know you can move
Through time and space. Find me, do,
Meet me, be with me, deeply,
No matter where I wander
Or rest my head at night – stay close, meander
Like a melody in my Soul…
I’ve run out of control
Searching for my Goal.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The Green House
The Green Out-house
The Green Backyard
The Green Yard back –
Green green green
Green in the wind
A better world.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Have you ever listened to
The night talking to itself
While you lay there beside one another
And not a word occurred to you?
You see the end approaching
Like a boat coming to the shore
To take you away
Away from a laughter called love
And as your worlds drift apart
In the space of one short night
Strange, but no words occur to you
To adequately say goodbye.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Drooping, a wing, the corners of a mouth
A face, a heart, a pair of wings again
Drooping –
A second life –
All alone. What does this mean? It means
Nobody has ever grasped.
You see the flower at dusk
Which you saw at dawn
The flower recognises you and opens up to you
But you pass it by
You have gone blind
You have walled yourself in
In that moment in which
You lost your
Insight…
By and by, you learn again
To see
The same flower of always
Waiting beside your heart,
I leap.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 