He points his guitar
Not like a musician to the side
Not like a gunman
Aiming his battle at you
But like a prayer up into the sky
And when he sings
Our eyes die on him
Our hearts lift up with hope
And follow his guitar
Pointing up into the sky deep within us.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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
Where do we find the meadows
Where do we find unsullied fields
Where do we find clear rivers
Safe streets, calm roads?
Where do we find prompt justice
Where do we find the fairest laws
Where do we find true balance
Round wisdom, pure love?
Where do we find harmony
Where do we find melody deep
Where do we find communion
Unity, respect?
The Desert is spreading, spreading and spreading
And eating up our gardens and drying up our fields
The Wanderer is going, going and going
Receiving, containing and learning always.
What is true existence? What is the good life?
Within or without? Or here or there?
There is nothing better than Home…
Home is here with us
We only need to give it a chance
And it will make us as happy as
Ever human beings could be on earth…
Home is ever here with us
In our hearts, at our fingertips…
Let it flow.
Where do we find fulfillment
Where do we find the heavenly
Where do we find perfection
Salvation, rebirth?
We find it right Here
In our hearts, in our homes, in our countrysides and cities,
In our striving, in our suffering, in our experiencing…
We find it in our growing, in our giving, in our maturing…
Nobody is going to do it for us
So we have to keep doing it
Until we get it right at last and forever.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
(Image by Geralt)
A woman there was
Who by music was made –
Music conceived her
And made her
And set her free
And lost she wandered
Uncomprehended and lonely and
Confused for many a day
Until upon a morning, dawn tore
Out of her heart a haunting melody
And she learned that she could sing
Then did she, joyous of heart, compose
And sing and release to the world
Like a bird-being set free
The very song that fashioned her
And daughter became mother
Nay, traveller became bridge
I am a song
You are a song
We are all heaven’s song.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
To know the heart of things,
Like a boy, like a youth, would…
To perceive the Voice that brings
The Clarity that it could
And indeed always does,
That we may understand our flaws…
When did I forget how to read
The truth behind people’s facades?
When did my heart cease to bleed
On behalf of my neighbours’ bad fads?
And why do I even write at all?
What do I gain? Do I rise or fall?
I walk alone upon this earth
And expect nothing other than this…
I awake each day like it’s new birth
And through the day I learn it is…
And why I continue is the fact
That that posterity will love this Act
With which I hereby seal this pact.
Just love, and look back never –
We who love shall live forever.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Don’t follow
When the road is hollow
Which they ply –
In your heart is sky.
The answer will sound in your heart
Long after your mother and I depart
Run your immortal run
A time once upon,
You my daughter and you my son.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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.
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 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.
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.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 