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ROW YOUR BOAT

~ Che ~ 9 Comments

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Do you see
Those two boats
On the river?
Two brothers
Will row, side by side
Into the sunset.

One will dock
On the golden banks
While the other
Will row on
And they will wave
Goodbye to each other.

This is the way
Of the world
Of love and loss
Of meeting and parting
Of friendship and memory
Of life and death.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

Picture:
My brother Kwame and I
University of Ibadan, Nigeria
1995

A few weeks later, he passed on in a car accident.
This was our last picture together.

Kwame & Che
Kwame and Che

 

LOVE AND POETS, FOOLS, DREAMS AND SEEKERS

~ Che ~ 5 Comments

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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.

FRIENDS AND CASTLES, LAKES, MOUNTAINS AND MYSTERIES

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Friends are true friends when they will not go away from you in search of something which they merely sense that you can give them; and they can wait a thousand years for you, because they simply love you.

Castles are places where those who have love can live without guilt, and those who have no love cannot live without guilt, because every castle is an amalgamation of the qualities of the souls that inhabit it. Castles breathe.

Lakes, although they treasure a mystery, will only show you your own face, and if you must know what lies inside the heart, then you must break through the face on the surface of the lake. Lakes speak never.

Mountains are mighty until you have conquered them… and then they become mightier than ever, each mount, but now you know why it stands there, because you have crowned it. Even after you die, the mountain will remember those who crowned him once, and forever; and when you return again, he will whisper your name not once, but thrice… mountains live forever in my heart. You are my heart, sweet woman.

Friends and castles, lakes, mountains and mysteries.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

UNYIELDING

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Words never stopped anyone
Whose heart was a gun
He’s just out to kill someone

Night never scared anyone
Whose heart was a sun
He’s just out to bring a new dawn.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

HATRED HAS MANY BELIEVERS

~ Che ~ 9 Comments

Watch that hatred bang
Its head on the wall
Watch it struggle against a bridge
Over a gorge, dig a hole and fall
Hear it, baffled, ponder into the night.
The middle is thinning out into left and right
I know you don’t believe in the light
Because it’s hard to believe in something
You don’t understand –
It’s safer to hate in numbers
For the logic of hatred is easy to comprehend
Only a few will be left standing
After love has conquered the land.
Tread soft, haters, you’re walking on quicksand.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

CAPTIVATION

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

I used to call you petal
Each time I pulled your lobes
And read your thoughts
Discreetly from far away in my personality
The way the farmer reads the clouds
Early in the morning

And thus you told me, without words
When to sow and when to reap
When to prune and when to weed
And when to wait with the patience
Of a farmer waiting for the harvest
Of his labour of love…

Those were the months you thought I was cruel
For the mystery of mirrors is this
The mirror cannot show you what’s
At the back of your mind. Only your lover can
When he breaks your heart
In order to get into it and conquer it

And thus did I imprison myself
For the conundrum of conquests is this
The king is the captive of his own kingdom
And when you let me break your heart
Little did I realise that you did it
Just to make sure you got me in

I came in for the kill
And never made it out again.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LOOK AGAIN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

And then you will see
That blind people see
The things that are invisible
To you and to me

And then you will hear
What the deaf loudly hear
When silence is all
That you and I hear

And then you will understand
That children understand
To store deep in their memory
Things they don’t yet understand

When a moment full of pain
Opens up your heart again
And you learn to look again
And see again, and hear again.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

ALL ALONE

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Transported by the tides of love
Inspired by the love of One
I sat down in a cove,
All alone.

My heart gushed forth with deepest love
For I love two women, not one;
Thus pause I in a cove,
All alone.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FRIENDSHIP

~ Che ~ 6 Comments

To laugh heart to heart always. To cry heart to heart always. No heart on today’s earth can laugh completely without first crying completely, because only that Pain can unbolt a bolted heart – the pain of friendship. Friendship does not come easy, even when you think it just popped up right from the very first moment – that was merely the seed. Now you have to plant it, water it, tend it, nurture it patiently – and, hopefully, finally reap the fruit and the flower, after the pain… the pain of friendship. I will always be your friend, I vow. When it grows dark, remember my words…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

INNER SHARING

~ Che ~ 9 Comments

Every friend
Takes a piece of you
But not all
Will give it back

From friendship to friendship
You lose more of you
And have to reinvent yourself
In the end

This is when
Your friends will tell you
That you have changed
And they don’t know you anymore

Only those
Who gave back what they took
Will understand you now
Because they were the soil

That yielded you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.