When I’m down You give me strength Atheists say You don’t exist But You lift me up when I’m depressed And calm me down and give me rest How can I express my gratitude? Nothing I am or give or do Can come close to repaying You For being so faithfully kind and merciful Your Kindness is my sole inspiration Your goodness os deserving of imitation Your fidelity to rightness is a lesson In integrity, severity mixed with compassion People seek You in prayers and dogmas In churches, mosques, temples and likewise I seek You in Kindness and in Goodness In Bravery, in Purity, in Humility, always. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Poetry
AGAIN AND AGAIN
The Heart does not forget overnight Sometimes it needs more than one lifetime To forget the way back to the Light And the echo of the last Grail Bell’s chime Again and again it reads the Message Again and again it feels the pull of the Call But the gains and pains of the Modern Age Make it time and again slowly forget it All. A sad day it is time and time again When a soul rises again from its deathbed, And all it’s relatives’ tears and pain Will be nothing compared to its own regret. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
UNCONTROLLABLE LOVE
If you can control love Then you’ve never felt love Love is stronger than the human spirit The transformation of the soul, love did it Love will waylay you and disobey you Love will take you and make you and break you and remake you in its own image. And knows better than you What it wants to go with you Presage. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
GOLD’S LOW STANDARDS
Who decided that gold is the standard? Why do we think it is so valuable? A shiny metal. Can we eat it? Yet we bombard Humankind with unkind mined metal unable To nourish spirit or body or soul or even mind - But greed needs a rampart for greed is blind And money is the mockery of the honest grind. Silver and gold have brought sorrow untold To the timid and the bold, the young and the old, Warm-blooded and cold-hearted who all departed Without a dust of gold from the path they started Upon, seeking value in materialism’s charms And losing their value in materialism’s arms’ Creeping stranglehold that grins and harms. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
CHANCES ARE
To me it’s neither a window nor a door This thing called opportunity It’s a cloud, a bubble, foam on the shore Of nature’s recurring serendipity You will get chances to rise And you will get chances to fall Which one of these two you utilise Well, that is your call. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
NO OTHERS
I stopped wanting others After I met you - And I still don’t want any others Even after I’ve lost you. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
GUM BUBBLE
Something is wrong with the world fundamentally, But nobody can put their finger on what it is exactly. The world’s borrowers owe the world’s lenders much more money Than the whole world makes and owns - It’s almost funny. Where did all that money come from and where did it go to? Creditors and debtors are one and the same entities too. What is money? What is currency? Before them how did the world feel? The value of distrust is greedy - It’s all just numbers. It’s not real. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
THE BEST YOU
To love is to trust Because love is the most vulnerable feeling on earth To trust is to respect Because trust is the purest compliment that has worth To respect is to obligate Because respect indicates expectation of highest virtue To love is to trust is to respect is to obligate you to be the best you. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
OPEN
I am a very open person If you come into my life I will open up to you But I will open you up too If you are not ready to be open Don’t come into my life Because I will naked you And get to the core of You What we see when we get there We might not like But we will understand and trust each other From that moment onwards Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
SLOWNESS AND SPEED
Many times tomorrow comes today If you finish today’s task early; Many times yesterday returns today If you finished it prematurely; They rhyme and seen to be the same thing But will each result in a different ending. It’s a fine line between slowness and speed; Knowing the difference between need and greed; To capture and move like eyes when they read; Quickness must follow, Thoroughness must lead; The path from intuition, through thought, to deed; Only through fulfilment can you be freed. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 