Poetry

PLATITUDE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

What is a kingdom to a God?
What is a moon to a sun?
What is thought to intuition?
What do you care?
Just dare!

When you are smashed
By your blasphemous Ambition
You will emerge
From out of the ruins of your kingdom
The shells of your broken personality…

Plant your mind
Like a budding tree
Into the deep dark soil of
Your intuition –

Let the Gardner sow
Let the Gardner tend
Let the Gardner reap.

That is why it took me so long
To realise we were always separating
Our love was always an ending
Never a commencing

A world is not enough for a home.
A grain of sand will do
When love is true.

O who would have known it was a love story
When our swords first clashed?

O who would have known it was a war
When our lips first met?

And Growth.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

THOUGHTS OF FREEDOM

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Bottling up the thoughts
Will not get rid of them
Yet speaking them all too soon
Is folly…

In the depth of silence
Assuming silence to be a lake
There is a cave
Wherein it glows like
Happiness

Bury your thoughts quietly within this
Cave of silent happiness

And no matter how rough a storm it be
That rocks the lake…
When all is calm again
Your thoughts
Will emerge matured and multiplied
And urge you
Urge you to set them free…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MORNING TIME IN THE HOUSE OF STRIVING

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

It’s such a beautiful morning
The warmth of the day
seems to come partly from me
and partly from the sun –
The light of day makes visible
what already I see
I see through myself too…

A bundle of hopes
A catacomb of dreams
A flaming forest of wishes
A stirring of longings
An understanding
of imperfection as unfailing as
the morning –
Morning time in the house of striving…

Hello to the world
Greetings to my neighbour
Good morning, Stranger
By the time night calls
you will see
that you and me
suffers one destiny.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

SEARCH

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

I think I definitely lost something
A better me
I hold a promise locked somewhere in my soul
But I’ve forgotten what it is
I know not how to unlock it
It is gone
Gone home.

Imagine
You are walking and
Walking and walking and walking
And
Walking and walking
And suddenly you make out something
In the distance –
But it is silent all around you
No life, no flowers, no birds
Only a dusty sun…

When you get to the object
You find that it is a tombstone
A silent grave undustied
In the middle of the desert
And your name is written on it
There
Waiting for you
In the middle of nowhere –
What do you do?
Thirsty soul
Hungry for love
Dying for the water of life
You stand for a long time
And stare down at your
Resting place.

But when you looked up
You saw
Gleaming above a distant hill
The green back of a yellow sun
Not dusty
Not lost…
What do you do?
Lay down in your grave
And die?
Or leave your name behind
And continue to walk
You talk to yourself
I hear you I hear you
Talking to yourself
Like a mad woman…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

WHEN THE MOON IS GONE…

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Like a soulful cry
On its own
Gradually spreading itself out
Through the vastness
Of the heavenly skies
So is the loneliness in my heart
When the moon is gone…

The hour of the full moon is gone
The setting suns
Leave moonless skies behind
Deep into the night
Once again…

Yet we bear it
Because
After the moon is gone
A different charm rules the night…
Until the moon
Another Moon
Another one
Comes again –

But I will never love this way again.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

REINCARNATION RIDDLE

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

How many times do
You think you
Have lived?
Blind mole
I am tired of your arguments

Stray in your hole
Keep on laughing
At me –
The soft brown earth is not as thick
As my dense black skin –

I cannot hear you.
I cannot hear you in there
Yet I know you are out there.
Your recurring epitaph
Awaits again:

The grind
Did wring you, it ground you
Pension was indeed
Your resting place.
Your nesting place.

How many times do
You think you
Have died?
Just once more.
Just once more.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

ENDINGS

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

You seek them at the beginnings
And find them not
You seek them through the middles
And find them not
You seek them at the endings
And find them not
Because where you were sure you would meet the End
You met only a new Beginning

And when you have started afresh
You understand that there are no endings
Because no stranger ever affects one so strangely
Or passes one by so quietly
As the end.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

BLACK SHEEP

~ Che ~ 5 Comments

Upon the fields and meadows
Saw I two black sheep
Alone, together
Feeding, side by side

And then evening was near
The shepherd
Slowly shaved the wool
Off one of them
And led it away

And now when I look into the fields
And meadows
Of my youth
All I see is one black sheep
Grazing alone…

Brother
I still miss you –
Except that the fields and meadows
Have become bare
And the second black sheep is gone too…

And the wind is cool
Upon the mountain-top…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

RENEWALS

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Love affairs
Whirlwind
Across the desert of loneliness…
Reassuring me that I live.

I’m grateful for every ripe watermelon,
Every mango, every grapefruit, every tangerine,
Every kiwi, pawpaw, and orange, every peach,
Ụdara, every ube, every mmịmị,

Every plum, every berry, Cherry, each date,
Every passionfruit that ever whet my appetite
Suckled on the fingers of my thirst
Stilled my restlessness.

Yet after the storm
Came always the quiet morning
Free of desire,
Full of my heart.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

LOVE AFFAIR

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

When I tasted the spliff
Dragged it down to the level
Of my hungry black lips
It was a temptation it could not resist

Heavenwards it soared
With me, its quivering
Stub, on its mind
Where I met higher thoughts.

Write down
Your poems at the height
Of your madness
For after you return

You will not remember anymore
What thoughts those were
That came to you so naturally
When you were high in love.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije