Pillows
Made of sorrows
That soften our tomorrows
Today
Feel the pain today
Rest your heart on it, my dear…
One day it will go away
And tomorrow will be here.
Repeat: cry, laugh, cry, play.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
Poems from the inner river
TWIN WHIMS
Spontaneous swims
The rain fall wins
Desire and disinterest are twins
Sometimes you look and say nothing
Sometimes you say something
And sometimes you try everything.
Whims. Oh, these whims.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
ONE MOMENT
Many things are granted just one moment
Take it or leave it
If you miss it
You can never again retrieve it.
Sometimes
The moment is very short
A moment, a second, a minute, an hour,
Believe it or not. Did you believe
And deliver
Or did you abort?
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
You will meet people
Without meeting them
You will see people
Without seeing them
You will know people
Without knowing them
And you will leave people
Without leaving them.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
THE CYCLE OF HURT
Sometimes people don’t realise the enormity
of what they have done until much later.
Somebody hurts the other
And the other hurts another
And this other hurts some other
Who hurts yet another
And the cycle of hurt continues
Until one person decides to take the hurt
And keep it
And not pass it on to any other –
And ends the cycle of hurt.
The enormity of the act
Of starting the cycle of hurt
Is surpassed by the enormity of the act
Of ending the cycle of hurt
Even if neither of them is aware
Of what they did when they did it
But forever and ever
The forgiver is always greater than the avenger
And the lover is always greater than the hater.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
LET’S SPEAK
Let’s speak
And when I
Say Hi
Don’t answer me
With AI –
Form your own words
Remind yourself how it used to be
When you used to think hard
And go down into the depth of your intuition
In search for your own perspective
And your own way of expressing it
And finding your own words
With which to say Hi
In your own way.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
DEFAULT SETTING
We always return
To our default faults
And always get saved
By our default strengths
When the mind
Has lost its way
The intuition returns
To its original way.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
HEALING QUIETLY
It‘s quiet inside Grown silent in a heart Of memories rich in restraint A talking drum a world apart It takes a village to raise a child It takes a community to heal an inner child And silence in a quiet place in your heart. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
DIFFERENT KINDS
There are different kinds of friends
They connect in different ways
There are different kinds of bends
They connect with different ways
There are different kinds of trends
They connect into different ways
There are different kinds of ends
They disconnect and you go different ways
And then they connect you to different ways.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
DIFFERENTLY YOU
If you are different
No matter how diffident
You try to be
They will still see
That you are different.
So, do you
And be true
All the way through
Their mean or funny looks –
A dose of courage is all it takes.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 