God

HAPPY PEOPLE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

If you’re mad, and you know you’re mad, are you mad?
If you’re in heaven, and you’re not happy, are you in heaven?
If you have everything, and you’re empty, do you have anything?
If you have nothing, and you’re full, do you have nothing?

What’s the point in being able to explain the Laws of God to everybody, if you lack the courage to live the paths that will reveal yourself to you.

Some people have the courage to show you God, but they don’t have the courage to show you themselves. It is not God that is shrouded in strange mystery, it is the human being.

Don’t tell me about God – you can’t. Tell me about yourself. Show me who you really are. That’s difficult enough. But that’s the knowledge we reciprocally need, between and amongst ourselves, in order to be able to live happily with one another.

And happy coexistence, as ourselves, with ourselves: that is our Paradise.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LOCKED INSIDE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

There is one frozen lake
That thaws not in the spring
It is winter of wordless ache
In my awakening

In my beginning
After I awoke
I greeted the earth and forgot
The language Creation spoke

Before the big bang
And ding dong merrily on high
Once upon a time
After a bell rang

Before the big bang
A song my spirit sang
Song of flame
In tongue of flame.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

SUCCESS AND FAILURE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

She had a promising career ahead
Of her but she lost that fire
And whether or not she found herself instead along the way
Is a subject of debate amongst her
Observers. She is different of late –

And then we all sat down and spoke again
About What is truly the Aim of Life.
Career? Money? Power? Fame? Or the search for God?…
Peace of mind? Is it mental and physical health? –
Love? Family? Travel? And experiencing?

Because we all go out the same way we came in
With hearts full of hopes and regrets.

–Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

COMPANY

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

Through this last stretch
Of lonely days
This last patch of watered fields
Although the mountains be now in sight
Need I some company
To make easier the journeying
And ease a bit my lonesome sorrow
That I by pain be not too distracted
From that alertness
That be my sworded shield…

So keep me company
Dear Muse
From here to Kingdom Come.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

INTERSECULAR

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

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.

WARM

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

There is something about Christmas
Even in places where it is cold, it is warm
Those without electricity bring light to each other
Drought and famine cannot destroy the bread of life
War will not make us forget that we are one human family
And the rich will not be happier than the poor –
There is a light that brought warmth upon this earth
If the cold of loneliness grips your heart this year
May Christmas touch you and make you warm.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

I wrote this poem as part of an interview published in Sabine’s Lifestyle-Kolumne. The body of the interview is however in german, but it can be read here.
*Aka Teraka was my pseudonym.

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

image by PublicDomainImages

Our hearts are broken in our youths,
The pain is deep and deeply buried
Beneath our adult ways and fashioned truths;
First love and first death never are forgotten…
First hopes and first dreams, of our young hearts begotten,
Within our innermost souls are ever carried.

Our hearts are shaken in our youths,
Our melodies tempered, our vision stirred…
Amidst all in the world that hurts or soothes
We sometimes slip back again into old times
And see young smiles and remember dead rhymes –
Our backward glance is never completely impaired.

Our hearts are made and formed yesterday,
And today we continue to actualise
The longing that awakened with the early morning ray…
And though yesterday is all done and gone away,
Yet we have it with us always in our hearts everyday
As we boldly heavenwards continue to strive and rise.

Yes, our hearts are awakened in our youths,
And who or what can stop a heart?
It wants to grow; like a stem it shoots
Towards light and life, towards stimulation –
And we shall make it, through trial, tribulation
And whateverelse it be that ever be on our chart!

Forever, forever, the candle is flaming…
And laughing and rising and working, remaining the same.

Our hearts are strengthened in our youths,
If we truly choose to live!
Yesterday, today and forever are booths –
We exit one and enter the next;
And hope and promise shall always be our text,
Yes, Father Above, and our gratitude to THEE we give!

Our hearts are born wild, live wild; until the taming
Gives us depth, dimension and the truth behind our naming.

Yesterday, today and forever…
Alive today, dead never –
We flower forever.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

 

Image by PublicDomainImages

MIRACLES

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

Stories.
Like the one about the sad horse
Who came upon a silver lake
And assuaged her thirst.
Tomorrow she will wake up
To suddenly find that
She has begun to sprout wings…
Yet she will not turn into an eagle
But will remain a horse
Even after her wings have matured
Because sometimes
Horses are permitted to own their own wings
If they will fly up to there
As hoped
And not just fly down to there
As feared…

I believe
In horses with wings…
In fairies that, unobserved, observe us…
In animals than can read the thoughts of humans…
In babies that knew their own names
Even before they were born…
In love that does not die

Stories.
Like the one about
Two children who climbed
An old tree
And, when they came down,
Had already become adults again.
Tomorrow they will
Become children for a second time
The children they were
First meant to be

Stories. Stories. Stories.

I believe in miracles
I believe I can fly
I believe in you, Baby
Love is a miracle of life

Stories.
Like the Oracle
That predicted its own demise
But did not live
To see whether its prediction came true or not…
Stories.
Like the three sisters
Who did not know they were sisters
Until after they had all fallen in love
With the same man…
Stories. Stories.
Like the creation of the world
The adventures of the roving stars
The mysteries in the bowels of the earth –
Like the tired old widow who
Came upon a wishing-well and
After gratefully satiating her thirst
Flipped a coin
And wished the wishing-well well..
Stories.
Like the refugee
Who asked for just a little water and bread
And got it not
Yet could not figure out how to hate…
Stories.
Mysteries.
Oracles.
Miracles.

Everybody
Has a history
But some histories
Are outside everybody

If you were to behold a miracle
Now
Would you recognise it as one?
Probably not.

Miracles
Follow me
From life to life
Place to place
Face to face

There is a Green Hill
Far far away in unsullied fields
Where there be no Death
Once upon a time
Love
There is a miracle called love.
Amen.

Thirty days to Christmas
And here I am
Writing poems
And thinking just of you, my dear.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BREATHE AGAIN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Wait for the knocking of the carpenter
For it won’t be long
Lovingly building that cradle, soft of hay
It will be rocked by a virgin’s song
But a prouder man, a truer man
Will watch over the smile of a radiant star
– Then, lonely earth spirit, light up your heart
For Christmas is no longer far.

And if you think deeper, you will realise
He did not come to die, but to open up our eyes
To Life, to love, to a new reason to strive.
Breathe again, wilted human flowers – and rise…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BITTER BREAD

~ Che ~ 6 Comments

When they seek bread
You hesitate to speak
Of the bread of life

For they look you in the eye
And say
Can’t you see that I’m hungry?

How can you make
The spirit strong
When the body is still so weak?

And so you fall silent
And wait with the rest,
For the rest, in peace…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.