What is this haze?
My mind becomes a maze
My feet remember their ways
By memory always –
The things we learned by heart
Shall be the surest chart
In our last days
The Adult becomes a child anew
And sees what the child once saw in the morning Dew.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Never look too deep into another person’s eyes
Never follow far the trade another person plies
Never question hard the words another person says
Never study long the games another person plays
Never think a king has all it takes to be a king
Never think a singer always has a song to sing
Never think a warrior has a warrior-heart in him
Never think a woman has true purity within
Never expect that your friend considers you their friend
Never expect that your guard will guard you to the end
Never expect that your secrets will be safe with me
Never expect that you can honour your vows truly
Because, my brother, man has turned into a beast of late
Because, my sister, yesterday we wandered out a gate
Because, my dear friend, there’s a new colour surrounding us
Because, my friend, people of planet earth have lost the Cross.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
When you see the future
It becomes the past
And the future becomes again
Unknown to you
To spend your life exploring your future
Is to spend your time scrutinizing your past
It is to miss all the joy and pain
The moment holds for you.
There is only one future
The result of what you do today
There is only one past
Tomorrow it will be today.
Love me today. Make a new tomorrow
Hope is my crystal ball
I see your heart aching for laughter
And laughter after laughter.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
This guitar I remember
Was once a part of my life
A most tender member
A most precious joint
The soil of the start
The point of the matter
The giver of self, she gave herself up…
This guitar I remember.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When, blinding,
The sun’s rays, binding,
The sun’s gaze, finding its way
Through a window, minding
Your business for you, a dazzling hello
Like a friend’s caring
Like a friend’s sharing a heart
You shut tight your eyes tight
A moment –
When love won’t wane, won’t dim, won’t fall
When all you get is love, love, love
You bite back the tears of incomprehension
And open wide your soul –
What your eyes can’t bear, the heart can hold
The heart will grow, the heart will grow!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Sometimes too
It is calm, the sand
A creamy caressing
My regular progressing, breathing
Like quiet sleep at night.
Peace is like that hand
That cool palm upon my racing heart
Cooling cooling me down, cooling
Me down
A very quiet moment
Sometimes I understand
The tracks that tears once marked down
The shifting desert sands – the sands
Shift and shift, but the tracks remain
Visible from my aeroplane
Pain and more pain over and over again
Makes you quieter, richer in the end.
It’s only peace that lasts that long –
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
A smile is a gift-wrapped heart
A heart is an unspoken smile
You grow on me
Windows open up too
A transparent pane of glass
I see you through
Houses head upward
But we speak one tongue
This time. We change hearts
Like we change lanes –
We grow on us.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Life is a vineyard
I’m thinking of wine, you know wine?
Internalise life in little sips
Don’t rush me, don’t rush you
Life even then is strong enough.
Life is a graveyard
You pass it by, reluctant to look in
It scares you
Littered with the memories of the reflection
Of your certain destiny
It brings you into deepest reflection
Most sober. Life, you scare me to death.
Before I die I want to love somebody
I need to love somebody
I cannot just come and go like that
I want to love somebody with all my heart
With all my heart
At least once in my life.
And then I loved somebody and it
Was still not enough. And then I knew:
Before I die, I need to believe in something
And fight for something and live
For something more important to me
Than my own self. To be myself is
To become selfless.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
In the hospital waiting room
It was not the sick who were ailing
But the healthy who accompanied them
I saw more worry in the eye
Of many a mother
Many thoughts on the brow of
Each accompanying husband
I saw that love shares burdens
And carries them doubly
And friendship will go the extra mile
And family is a wordless wonder
And the heart is the deepest mystery on earth.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I knew it
It was too new
Not to be true too –
The questions unreplied were too few too
Happiness swallowed all the cares
Sorrow wears
Discord tears
Happiness shares and it goes around
The world is enough
Big enough, small enough, world enough
Sure.
Manure is pure. Sure.
Even a decadent mind
Even that dark heart
Can laugh out loud
Out loud –
Manure is pure.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 