That Mountain yes
It is high, hard, rugged, dogged
And casts a long shadow
It will not stop you
From arriving the other side
Of your pride, when love touches you –
You say it, I’m sorry
It hurts but not for long
Pain heals. I’m sorry…
Those tears are more powerful
Than a waterfall, every barrier will break
In their wake, they will wash the air
Clean, like nature’s storm –
I’m sorry is a power that is a winner.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The freedom you give yourselves
Is the freedom you’ll share
If you say I won’t be free
You’re bound to binding me
If you say you’ll own it all
You’ll have to fight us off
Because I want a piece of peace
A pint of prosperity
A joint of hope and happiness
A chunk of a chance at success
A healthy dose of social security
And a shot of education –
Give us our share!
Cheers!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
If I don’t win these elections
I will burn down this country
Well I think if you win
You will burn it down even faster
Some people don’t shout any more
They let the bombs speak for them
Some people don’t threaten any more
They let the kidnapped girls be their message
These are those days again
When fear paralyses the strong
And empowers the weak.
And then they won
And it was business as usual
As usual.
Fool us twice, shame on us.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Success is attractive. Only success.
Yet she found you attractive
For you alone were successful
At conquering her hardened heart
There are many walking wounds on earth
Many crusted souls aching for life
Think not that you are nothing
Simply because you never made it to that school
That job, that position, that wealth, that status…
It is also success to heal a human heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The Sound of Evening
Beginning to rise
Filled her ears…
They say she’s mad
She’s not bad, she’s just sad
Locked in a jigsaw puzzle
A kaleidoscopic riot of betrayed dreams
Tangled up in her shattered mind
Entangling her to that spot of evening sand
Around which she circles every
Sunset.
There is an unclear thought in her mind that occupies her
Worryingly, perpetually –
If only she could think it through, she thinks
Just once think it through…
Bound to the ungrasped thought
She circles and circles it endlessly…
I want to touch her and tell her
To just walk away from it…
It’s an illusion – walk away…
But she won’t hear.
Yesterday, after a thousand lifetimes
I passed that way
And looked again
And she’s still there… struggling
And struggling
With a thought
That almost
But just never crosses
Her mind.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I wonder
How it will be
On the day I die –
Will I hear that music?
This whole journey
What has it been worth
If I don’t hear that music?
If tomorrow
Will unteach me how to hear that music
Then take me today, dear Lord…
If today I am still deaf
To that music
Then guide me to the source
Of that guitar, and teach me how to grasp
Thine song, Lord, before my day
Is come.
As empty as life is
Even emptier is death
Without music.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
You make me richer
The more I give to you
The well fills the pitcher
Lovingly. This is from me to you
Sings the well, a wishing well
No coin can grant the wishes
That kindness will, a kindness well
Your heart, a table of rare dishes
More profound than profundity
Wiser than the wisest sagacity
Where it stops – the world – there begins
Aye there begins Friendship, and wins.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
How many will survive when the drones
Say Hello
When a young lady, barely out of
School, is fingering somewhere a hidden button
And a closed-minded kid, for whom
The world is a distant myth
Sits for ours masturbating a joystick?
Their message is a drone
Their package death faster than the
Speed of sound –
How many will survive when the mad
Men on the other side also get their hands
On the deadly secrets of death?
How many will survive to teach tomorrow?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
You have to go deep
To decipher the truth within
Deep enough to be unable
To come out again. Catch 22.
Then you will ask yourself
What use is the knowledge
If you cannot use it
To free yourself from the truth.
But humanity kicks in
The instinct for self-preservation
Some call it the third eye
The inner voice, the sixth sense.
Reason says go left
Yet your feet turn right
There is an inner road
That leads through the night.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There is a lonely patch of plateau
Hidden away on the mountain highs
Behind the windstrong oaks
Betwixt twin peaks
It is where we parked peace, away
From sight
A sore spot in our memory.
Like a dark crack between two Valleys
Ass cheeks you burn to scratch
The world’s buttocks hidden away too
Is shifting restively restlessly because
There is an itch down there, a mad itch
And its name is war.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 