I‘m just on my lonely path But very few people know And even those that know Still don’t really know Because how can you know What I don’t truly show? The nature of my sorrow The depth of my flow For I still have many miles to go In my search for tomorrow And only I truly know The loneliness of my path. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
alone
FREED
Hardly a night goes by
Hardly a breath flows, an evening
Melts
Without this thought
You brighten my life
Curly windows
When the crowds are many
I am alone
I wanted to be a nightingale
To be a flower
I wanted to be a star
The evening wind blows
I am human. Let it be…
Sometimes again
Freed from the city’s shackles
Hackles, hard tackles
I am green, bright yellow, blue as sky
Glad am I.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
FOREST ROAD
There is comfort in pain
Like these tears that spill my eyes
Mine heart shallt drink
When I am alone
They all left me, one bye one
But I shall not break
Like the palm tree, bent under
My laugh will be straight again
A lane travels through the woods alone
Asking for no company
Neither loving nor hating those that
Walk on him and leave him behind.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
LONELY, BROTHER
I have a lonely brother, born of a single mother and father, lonely and alone, trudging patiently home through the land of snow-mountains and smoke-forests and sandy deserts, not to forget the bottomless sea. He has few friends, for few comprehend him, even though he treasures the goal also all so alone. I want to help him, but I do not know how to, nor does he always accept help. I know only that, in the end, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. Are you lonely, brother? Nobody is ever alone. An angel, a beast or a solitary star – one of these is always there with you and me. If I am not my brother’s keeper, who is? And whose keeper then am I? I guess I keep again our second goal.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I SAW LONELINESS
I saw loneliness tonight – she
Was sitting in the corner, in her fifties
Smoking a cigarette and watching
Laughter dancing on the young dancefloor.
For a while, her husband sat next to her
And she smiled and joked with him and
His friends. When they left to get a drink
She sat quietly in her thoughts and
As her eyes roved quietly over the
Dancefloor, our eyes met. And then I saw
Loneliness.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 