LOVE AND POETS, FOOLS, DREAMS AND SEEKERS


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Our dreams do not die, but when we misinterpret them, we make fools of ourselves. Big fools. But it is love again that maketh the biggest fools of us all, especially of poets and dreamers.

I dream my dreams, I write my poems, but still the nearest I come to the love in my heart are these words on paper that I write. And it is not me that you love, but my poetry. And fools continue to dream and poets continue to write love-poems and I continue to change.

But I do not believe the myth, oh no. The younger you are, I know, the deeper you love. Love does not make fools of youths, only of adults.

My chest hurts. It is cold somewhere strange and far…

How really good are the things I write? If you knew the amount of pain and loneliness, the pressure of gleaned recognition, the deep sorrow under which I write them down, my friend, you would read them gently and tenderly and with a thought for all those who labour away but are called fools and dreamers by those for whom they also write. Aye, if you knew the pain mingled with the ink which write these lines, you would weep for everybody on earth and beyond.

But do not cry for me… when I write, I shed my pain.

But she never goes away, my love, like a deer. She is only shy and a little wary of strange men, and all men are strange. I’ve been to many places, but no place ever confounded me quite like the heart of the woman I love. It was a room of mirrors and all I see was myself everywhere. But so would everybody else too who found their way into her – and yet her heart does not lie. It only reflects the truth. So I got mad and smashed her heart… and – what do you know? – instead of hating me for causing her pain, she loved me fiercely for freeing her from her loneliness and fear.

Poets seek love – and find poems…

Fools seek love – and find dreams…

Seekers seek truth – and find love…

Love and poets, fools, dreams and seekers.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE RIVER

Time could be a river
If I were standing still
Or a dream, if I
Had taken a sleeping pill –

But awake I meander
Through dreams which I fulfil
So I must be the river
And time is standing still.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

AUTUMN WAKE

Yield
Like the fields
Do yield
A piece of you
For the season of ripening
Is upon your feet.

All your old sins, and new too
All your old fears are new too
Even your old hopes will become new
Strengths, thoughts and dreams
Have rested long enough, it seems
Have rested long enough, it seems

Yield
Like the fields
Do yield
A multitude of fruits and roots
And all were offshoots
Of just one seed

So, yield to your need
And be the seed
And the fruit
And be the answer today
To the question you asked yesterday
Become one with your longing.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

A DEEP AWESOME SILENT MOON

This night’s moon
Is wet and red
Pensive, heavy
Soaked in a silent mystery
And a bloody cry as of hunting wolves
Unheard of and staining
The blue-black canvas of the tree-dotted nightscape

She struggles
This fascinating moon
To lift herself above the palms
And jab
Our consciousness
With wishes from the embers
Of the invisible weavings of life

The faithfulness
Of the ever-returning moon…
Soon the tree-tops
Who now stare levelly at the moon
Will also have to raise their eyes up
If they want to see
Her face…

O lovely awesome red moon
Rising above the palm trees
Ascending again
Sink like the silence of peace
Deep into my breast.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.