What is this haze?
My mind becomes a maze
My feet remember their ways
By memory always –
The things we learned by heart
Shall be the surest chart
In our last days
The Adult becomes a child anew
And sees what the child once saw in the morning Dew.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
The quiet is defeaning
It bursts your eardrums
Eery and foreboding
Who will make the first move?
Who will change sides?
What is really happening?
History, like a confused child
Keeps coming back home
Looking for its parents
History, like a boomerang
Circles and circles the raised hand
Waiting for peace and rest.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The end must be strong
Or it will not be satisfied with itself
Shall return again
And again
Demanding to be ended…
The end that drags out must be allowed to drag out
That way we shall never forget
It is imprinted, chiselled, branded prime-deeply
Into heart and mind
Unforgettable, memorable, forever recognisable
Never to be dared again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There are thoughts that define
And there are thoughts that defy…
There are hearts that deny
Hearts that desire
And hearts that never run dry –
And there are hearts
That run dry –
But I won’t cry.
There were thoughts that struck me
Thoughts that thunderstruck me
And left me dumbstruck –
These are the thoughts that stuck to me…
But if we say sometimes yes
Sometimes no
Sometimes…
Yes sometimes no sometimes yes.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The words will still be the one
The one to articulate Silence
When we sing the praises of Silence
We do so with words
The strange bird will still be the one
The one to carry your story forward
Even though you ostracized him
He will preserve your story
When strangers rule the world.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
You have to be a little weird
To be normal
A little fat to be healthy
A little perverted to love fully
A little poor to be rich
And a little me
To be you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
How much is peace worth?
How many countries on earth?
How many blood-sprinkled shirts?
How many interrupted births?
How many truths? How many lies?
How many will regret a compromise?
What price is worth the prize?
This is the danger:
Peace is a stranger
On earth.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Because I love you
I love your scars
Trophies of all your wars
Because I love you
I love your ugliness
In and out of your dress
They make you special
And beautiful in my eyes.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The bullet leapt
Wept the barrel with
Sorrow’s silent shriek protesting
The bullet’s hunger
Feeding the
Blood bank’s Belly, saving
Not life, but your account
Of – what? – your life?
Countless Cowries
Bagged in bloated
Human hide
Yet not enough to buy back
Recompense.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Never look too deep into another person’s eyes
Never follow far the trade another person plies
Never question hard the words another person says
Never study long the games another person plays
Never think a king has all it takes to be a king
Never think a singer always has a song to sing
Never think a warrior has a warrior-heart in him
Never think a woman has true purity within
Never expect that your friend considers you their friend
Never expect that your guard will guard you to the end
Never expect that your secrets will be safe with me
Never expect that you can honour your vows truly
Because, my brother, man has turned into a beast of late
Because, my sister, yesterday we wandered out a gate
Because, my dear friend, there’s a new colour surrounding us
Because, my friend, people of planet earth have lost the Cross.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 