Before we landed
I saw a rainbow
It came right through my window –
It curved and curved
Until its ends met one another in a circle
A rainbow circle
I shall take with me
To men on earth this rainbow
That I caught in the skies –
Reflect it shall my smile
My every word shall echo it
My every look shall project a rainbow
Into everyone who loves me back
This year. We shall unite
In a circle and, in Love, be one.
This is the year of Love.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Some people, like stars, only
Appear small because they
Are so very very far away
From us and our Understanding.
The closer we get to them
In essence and in comprehension
The smaller we become
With humility.
The more we understand them
The more we grow
In humility.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The world rotates,
A restless insomniac,
Lays on its back
Upon its bed of thorns
The bedsheets are sweating
Blood and brine
Midnight is crying for dawn.
A dream crashes to death everyday –
What laws really govern our lives?
No constitution
No legal textbook
Can capture the reasons and dynamics of living
So why don’t I stop wasting my time
With laws that terminate at death;
Seek instead for those that ever were
Ever will be.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When we love, we move…
When we move, we leave someone behind –
Whatever happens to those whom we leave behind?
I have often wondered
But I truly do not know
If I will recognise them
When I meet them again in a new time.
When we love, we move…
When we move, we leave someone behind –
Whatever happens to those whom we leave behind?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Suddenly the snow came
I had waited
And watched the mountain-tops
Snow-capped
All around was a struggling winter
Asserting itself clumsily
When the skies were not blue, it drizzled
The clouds passed away
Temperature refused to fall, stood straight –
I walked deep in thought
On the Mountain, I heard the Bells
Ever and again they met in one sound
A single song. I walked up
And drove away before dawn. It did not
Snow until the airbus was about
To leave the Gate. I watched it
And recalled in my memory
The feel of snow.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Recently, I flowed
I was a river
I forgot yesterday and
Today remembered me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Windows are opening out of
And into my soul
Like trap-doors trapping out
And waterfalls falling down
And flowers flowering forever away
From night to day
And wailing winds unafraid of me
Of whom I am not afraid
And wishing pains and painful wishes
And undying longings and the longing for immortality
And this poem, like this strange year, is finished.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
It began as a running thought
What I ought and ought not perhaps
Know, do or think
It began as a bowl of poems
But when the curtain lifted
I saw it was one poem.
This is the path of light
The curving straight line
Nothing is too far, nothing is too near
I shall get there.
Lovely are the snowflakes outside the
Airbus windows
Soon we shall rollbacktaxirunaway and
Take off –
And I shall remember the snow
And take along with me the love of friends
Into the new year.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
They say a time will come
When upon this earth
Evolution will girdle its gains
Back again around its girth
Many a wondrous tree
That we cherish and deeply love
Will, year by year, with time
Evolving slow dissolve
Many a beloved animal
Continents, rivers, plateaux
Even man, the so-called crown
Yes, our body too will go
And one day, even she
Heaven’s gate and heaven’s door
The lovely lovely rose
On earth will be no more.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Like a cow
Eschewing its thoughts
The worship bells
Choked my throat
Penned me to my pagy leaf
Sunday mournings
Have my sins been so many?
Stop confessing guiltily
What you profess so
Guiltlessly.
Monday is the new Sunday.
If you want to meet God,
Look for Him on Monday –
On Sunday, Saturday and Friday He is far far away,
Tired of our hypocrisy.
-Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 