The city is overcast with the blue mist of dawn
Swiftly fading
The street lamps of night
Hurriedly dwindling
Yesterday’s man
Softly gazing
A tiger’s cub at the setting moon.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
HAPPINESS
JAZZ HOLE
I’m feeling down today
The perfect mood
For poetry
He’s played the music
So long
He’s lost in the music now
That musician on stage
Is an echo of the poetry
Eating me inside.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
MY POETRY BENCH
There is a graveyard thence
With benches placed all over
Where people come a-steady
To ponder life and death
There is a certain bench
Apart from every other
Where I sit when poetry
Takes clean away my breath.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
DISCERNING
I fear
The daily commute
To the valley of the mute
The echoless cry of my silent flute
Digs a hole in my soul
Wringe me mad
I fear
Mockery sticks his head around the door
You no waving yo flag no mo?
Blackhawk down
My dreams, stranded shipwrecks
Scuttle each hurriedly into safety
Hiding they fearfully await the scorching passage
Of the locals’ raging raid –
Some will be caught, shot, mocked
Some will sacrifice themselves
That the finer ones may escape the drape
For tomorrow’s blossoming
Quiet now
Wait for the Sign.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BABY
He’s lying in the midst of his toys
And what language do they speak
To one another? They seem to understand
Each other. It’s his smile
That makes me strong.
I’m glad he can’t interpret my frown
When I look out of the window
Into the world, into the times –
Yes I’m glad for him
Let him store happiness in his heart today.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije..
PICK WITH CARE THE ENEMIES YOU BEAR
Pick with care
The enemies you bear
When the unexpected is near
They shall be there
To crown you.
When true friends
Step off the boat
Curious, how the river
Turns your coat
Around you.
Clear your throat
Vomit when no-one is looking
Regurgitated oaths
Pressure-cooking
Sunbrowns you.
If diplomacy
Be their tactless god
How shall he decipher
Your non-committal nod,
Proud you?
But brave soldier
It is the art of war
To live on in pages
Of folklore
Unbound to you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ONCE SO DEEP, NOW SO SHALLOW
Once so deep, now so shallow
Once never walking the path I now follow
My farm lies fallow
Another dimension
Same old sung in a new key
Sharps, naturals, empty flats
We’ve moved house, you, I
I like it that there is no barrier
In between
My view into your eyes, your view into my heart –
It gives me hope
Furnishes me with counterproof more powerful
Than the deliberations of thoughts
Did you renounce anything for this love, this hour, this
Life? – The words grow stronger
The more I write; the light grows brighter
Within the night, beneath the descending Halo.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
WRITING IS THE HAPPINESS OF SORROW
Writing is the happiness
Of sorrow
The immortal spirit
Of mortality
The voice that needs
No mouth
The painting whose canvas is
The reader’s mind.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
———-
In 2013 I gave myself the luxury of publishing two books of poems on my birthday – today 6th April.
One is titled “WRITING IS THE HAPPINESS OF SORROW“, the idea for which came with the poem above which I wrote some time ago.
The other is “THE BEAUTIFUL ONES HAVE BEEN BORN” which is specific to my continent Africa.
In 2015 I reprinted them.
HATRED AND HOPE
Branded roses
Blood is your dance floor
Beast is the yeast of your flour
Your moist garden is the handle of my door
And your soup is dour.
I saw a stranger, dressed in black,
Quietly step back from your door –
I saw you, a black bird in grey skies
Flapping, rising
Hatred flaming in your chest like
A torn rose.
Yet I kissed you, don’t
Ask me why – your lips parted and I tasted
Hope on your tongue
Like a squirrel hiding in the bush.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE END MUST BE STRONG
The end must be strong
Or it will not be satisfied with itself
Shall return again
And again
Demanding to be ended…
The end that drags out must be allowed to drag out
That way we shall never forget
It is imprinted, chiselled, branded prime-deeply
Into heart and mind
Unforgettable, memorable, forever recognisable
Never to be dared again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 