Ibises of paradise
Crows of light
Echoes of Dove and Rose
Palm Trees and Christmas Day
From high up on a Tower
Bells ringing
Come to rest…
And the rest is Christmas Day
Side by side
We shoulder the walk up
The Mountainstar, unto the
Mountaintop
And peace.
For we are not walking alone
We are walking alone
With nature’s laws.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The same song, the same gong
The same sound
It is all bound up in the same one
Concept –
I conceptualise, I discover, I am, I am not
I conceptualise, I know, I know not, I grow
A bell opened up and let out a melody
Ten thousand Songs, memory.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
One man’s iconolater
Is the other man’s idolworshipper
Only the iconoclast
Is atheist – to some
Iconic deity itself to others
We see from different sides.
One man’s woman
Some nights is another
Woman’s man
– shout! all you want
Hidden things will continue
To happen in hidden places.
Understanding is
A fragment of that
Cracked mirror’s bottom.
Return from your space ship
Bewildered scientist
The greater mystery is humanity.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Your face I know
But not your name
Your faces I know
But I know not your Names…
We meet everyday, everywhere
Our vibrations, our radiations never were parted
From one another –
I know you, I love you, you are my Home
On earth.
Hold me, Song of Eternity, like we were
One.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
How many women
Can quench my thirst?
How many loves
Can calm my racing heart?
How many homes
Can contain all my feelings?
My flaming heart
Will have its piece
My flaming heart
Will have its peace
O flaming heart
Be still, be still…
The wind is blowing
The river is flowing –
Peace, be still.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The Christmas holiday season
is like a dream
In January you wake up and
try to retain
as much of the dream as possible
within your heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
A smile is made up of many wounds
A road is the sum of innumerable restless feet
Love is the pain that pleasures
And victory is defiance in the heart of defeat
But what is spirit?
Spirit is
The stranger that walks the earth
For whom death is birth
Sleepwalker swaying at deep’s edge
Unfulfilled, the promise, unremembered, the pledge.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
We are not a new Generation
We are just a new generation-gap
The end is still a promise away
The new beginning is not ours to anchor
We are the same as our fathers of yesterday
We are the repetition of our every ancestor –
We are not a new Generation
We are just a new generation-gap.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
He points his guitar
Not like a musician to the side
Not like a gunman
Aiming his battle at you
But like a prayer up into the sky
And when he sings
Our eyes die on him
Our hearts lift up with hope
And follow his guitar
Pointing up into the sky deep within us.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
In the days of night
The unroaded paths
Only one only one
Was constant –
To her I pen this poem tonight
Only one only one
Was constant –
While I slept, while I woke
While I walked and while I wept
While I sought and fought and caught
And was alone
In my heart was the sound of music
Only one only one
Was constant –
To music I pen this poem tonight.
-Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 