When sheep undress
They become wolves
When wolves undress
They become sheep
Unclothing less
Reveals more
Of why we laugh
When we weep.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Poems
CHERISHED ALWAYS
I know you’re waiting for me to come
You know I’m waiting for you to become –
How long?
An upturned Calabash hides something
A broken mirror is still a mirror
A song unsung – is it a song?
A loveless soul – is it a soul?
When lovers part, are they still lovers?
Have they learnt how to love
Or forgotten how to love a little?
Upsidedownworld.
Turn it upsideupanddownsidedown
But leave the middle in the middle.
The world grows quiet quietly
A lone car passes now and then
A dog barks gently, night falls lightly
And the studio condenses around me again.
Who was I thinking of just now?
Where was I before evening called me back?
A heart is a thousand stories
And forgotten memories.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
UNITED
If love is like this all the time
Then love is magic; and love and time
Are one.
So let it keep rolling, flowing, growing
When it doth snow, let it keep snowing
Until it’s done.
Because underneath the melting snow blanket
A new beginning of our love forms, and bank on it
We’ll still be one
When it’s done.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
SIMPLE SIM ON LOVE
Simple Simon
made a rhyme on
something on his mind:
If God is love,
all else above,
then how can love be blind?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
FIELDS OF LIGHT
In fields of light above this realm
Where sight and sound are one
I chanced upon a little elm
A woman sat upon
From far afar I sharp’d my eyes
To peer good at this sight
And soon came I to see thread-ties
‘Tween her and the High Light
She sat so still, she did not stir
Or so it seemed to me
‘Til I was no more far, but near
And then began to see
Than in her hand she held a flute
The longest yet I’ve seen
Which stretched gently until its root
Her small lips was between
And she it was who through her sounds
Was forming all these fields
Of beauteous light where joy abounds
And my heart rapture yields
These fields of light I long have passed
Yet never will forget
That those blessed hills, meads, groves were massed
But through that simple set
Of flute and woman weaving music
Healing broken hearts
And forming fields of light of scenic
Beauty for these parts.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORLD AROUND YOU?
Music made me
A bird saved me
A smile undid me
A woman slew me
A friend betrayed me
And I dug myself out of the Grave.
A wound bled me
A sword healed me
A dream baffled me
A heart became me… became I…
A Call reached me
Here, there and everywhere –
Now, tell me
If you understand humanity yet?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ONLY US
It is not a joke;
But everyone is laughing
As though it were…
Early in the morning
I can hear voices whispering
Before dawn…
But when I peered out through the window
I saw nothing
Yet heard something
Which sounded like whispering voices
Talking to me
Telling me what to write
And I write without complaint
Even though the pain is sometimes astronomical –
Yet I write.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THOUGHTS WE MET
I won’t forget
Every thought I met
Blowing in the breeze
Resting beneath the trees
And mirrored on each lake
Asleep or awake
Before which we waited
And silently contemplated
Another wonderful day
Of this lovely holiday…
Thoughts that grow
Like flowers in the meadow
And time after time
Like a recurrent rhyme
Will yield new fruit
And like a Magic flute
Even as I age
Page after page
Will always light the light
Of Insight.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije. (Poems Inspired By The Lake District)
HOW DO YOU STOP LOVING SOMEONE?
How do you stop loving someone? How do you forget her eyes and her face and her secret smile and the unwordable look she bears upon her countenance?
How do you stop loving someone? How do you forget the times shared? How do you forget the Love, the eternalness of your togetherness? How do you make it right forever?
How do you stop loving someone? How do you uproot love from your soul? A love that wants to remain. Someone who loves you so. A union that begs for fulfilment. How do you not continue an ancient story in a modern world? How does an old tune not give birth to a new tale? How does a stream die?? It just resurfaces in other places…
How do birds of one wing not visit heaven together? How does loneliness not seek itself? How does fire not burn? How do sowed seeds not grow? How can you restrain the moving sun, unless you first stop the rotation of the earth…? But then how so many other people die, how many other things are lost?
How do waterfalls desist from falling? Two elephants in one heart, two hearts in one elephant. If you kill the elephant and open the heart in order to understand this phenomenon, what if they all die, elephants and hearts?
How do you stop loving someone? I don’t know.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
EMPTY AGAIN
In heaven
I saw birds
Even blackbirds
So I wrote
This poem
Which is just words
And when I was done
And looked up
It was an empty sky.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
