That Mountain yes
It is high, hard, rugged, dogged
And casts a long shadow
It will not stop you
From arriving the other side
Of your pride, when love touches you –
You say it, I’m sorry
It hurts but not for long
Pain heals. I’m sorry…
Those tears are more powerful
Than a waterfall, every barrier will break
In their wake, they will wash the air
Clean, like nature’s storm –
I’m sorry is a power that is a winner.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Success is attractive. Only success.
Yet she found you attractive
For you alone were successful
At conquering her hardened heart
There are many walking wounds on earth
Many crusted souls aching for life
Think not that you are nothing
Simply because you never made it to that school
That job, that position, that wealth, that status…
It is also success to heal a human heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Yes I’m a thief
I steal your heart
And you love it
And everytime I return it to you
You weep bitterly
And beg me to rob you again.
Beg harder.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
My friends are the improbable people
The ones you wouldn’t expect
Who never visit or party with me
Yet always show me respect
Who hide in the faceless crowd
And put in a good word for me
Who demand of me not company
But that I walk the path before me
Who even when we quarrel
Still never will betray me
Who tell me my failings to my face
But keep my secrets safely
Because I do the same for them
It is the way of friendship
The friends you rarely see me with
Are the ones you shouldn’t mess with.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Silence will roll into silence
When your heart, for miles,
Lonely, clothed in the essence
Of sorrow shed in every sense
But one…,
Arises before your countenance
And, despite sorrow, smiles –
Fresh Food for your sustenance,
Fresh impetus for the long distance
You run…
Do you hear the rolling silence?
If you listen and listen hard
To Silence, the deeper bard;
Just listen, listen in hard…
Do you hear the rolling silence?
Silence will roll into silence
When the pain in you
Has crossed the line into convalescence
And the Horizon’s in view.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I saw suddenly one day that there on our face is a mask. Strange, but it moved. It spoke. It smiled. It frowned. It scolded. And it watched the world obliquely.
And the last thing it will tell you is that it is a mask.
And only love can break into this mask and comprehend its bearer. And only love can break into this mask and be comprehended by its wearer.
And then to my horror I saw that every continent has its masks. Every race, every group and every face. But whoever is unmasked by love is masked by love.
And love can speak, can comprehend every tongue. And on the day we have all learned to speak the language of true love – respectful, selfless love – we shall have no more the need to mask our hearts anymore.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Who knows
Better than the nose
How a thing really smells?
Who spies
Clearer than the eyes
Where a thing really dwells?
If your heart
Is your most tender part
Then I am a compass
And you are a chart.
I will always find you
Lovely lass
And encompass you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There is gold
In your blood
Blue in you
And best of all
When you say How do you do
You mean it too –
Your gold I want not
Your blueblood I wish I could wash out
For it would only be a burden –
But you make me lighter
Each time I see how the people’s eyes shine brighter
When you enter the room.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
After love was killed, it rose again. After day was banished, it returned again. After joy was smothered, it shone again. After ours was buried,… there – it resurrects.
But I wonder: when the universe sings in unison, do we hear music or do we hear again the first silence? But I know: when eternity smiles or laughs, no heart can help but smile and laugh along. Now the question is: who will point out to us the Way back into the fabled land of tomorrow? Only Today can do it, out of whom Tomorrow is ever and again born.
And like strange mists are all those myths which reassure us of the Immortality of spirit and love. You may not quite see through them with your understanding; but if you are patient, they finally turn out to yield the truth. Because when the mists break and un-form, you see again the very same road they once had shrouded.
But is this poetry? Or is this love? Or did Word and Spirit ever meet, or ever part?
Soon the Mists will break open and we shall see what lies inside this heart…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I can show you the earth, I can show you the sky, I can show you the sea, the sun and the moon; there is nothing I cannot show you, but my heart. Yet: what is in my heart, you may wonder? And truly there are only simple things therein, little things forgotten and unforgotten – yet I shall not show it to you.
You can touch the sky if you really try; you can swim every ocean, river, sea and Lake. You can stand on the moon, you can stroke a candle-flame; but, try as you might, you still cannot touch my heart, unless I let you. Not my heart… not this little heart of mine.
Is my heart fragile? Sometimes. Is my hard adamantine? Sometimes. What is a little human heart? A mountain? A sea? A cave? A mirror? A forest of flames? What?
I can show you everything but my heart, because locked within it is a painful shyness that simply cannot bear to be seen, or touched, the wrong way, by the wrong hand, or eye, too soon, too late. It is gone. Innocence. What happened?
If I could take away the Shyness from my heart, then I could show you my heart… but then all the fun would be gone. For a heart without shyness is only a memory of a heart – and my shyness is very precious to me and my heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 