AGAIN

The punishment for being brave
Is having nothing to do
But be brave –
A tidal wave is rising in my soul.

The reward for being brave
Is having to do nothing
But be brave –
A tidal wave is crashing in my soul.

She warmed her cold tongue with
The flaming words of a passionate poet and
Lashed a gutter of decadent lava on
My soul.

Yet I told her still the truth
Again and again and again
And again and again, again
And again.

– che chidi chukwumerije

THE DAILY TRAINRIDE

In the skyline grey
Memory hung
The future gone astray
Emptiness stung
Hung with reality in the greying city
The dying trees, the loveless pity
Duplicity and winding and twisting, reflecting
The beast in the best of the robots erecting
Their concrete phalli, their bull’s I’s, to scratch the sky
The insatiable itch, impotent ambition, try and try
And try as you might, your might is the limp cloud
The wilted grass, the lonely office, the empty crowd
The quiet madness, the gory glory
The daily trainride into another same story
The casual business of getting by
Between yesterday and tomorrow
A moment of reflection, gone, a sigh
Of something neither joy nor sorrow.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije