Only happiness can defeat sadness Only honesty to oneself can defeat madness Only goodness can defeat badness Mirroring darkness is not our business Rather for the Light we bear witness And learn gradually to feel forgiveness At a point words become meaningless Whether we speak more or speak less We’ll misunderstand each other nevertheless Only time and deeds and steadfastness Only consistency in human friendliness Only self-control and gentlemanliness Will grant our hearts again to each other access. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
humanity
HUNGRY FOR HUMAN LOVE
The world is a buffet All you can meet Humanity at the venue All you can greet Kindness on the menu All you can treat Love and pain the entree All you can eat. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
AI CANNOT SATISFY
AI Cannot satisfy The longing for reality The thirst for humanity It can only replicate duplicate Reiterate concentrate elucidate Our past in all its profusion The sum of all our confusion Neatly packaged in a way That appeals to our Today But it will not give us anything new. The future is still the spirit’s purview. If we want the new then we must Do what we have in the past Always done to grow: Let go of the past. Raising the intuition above the intellect We much reach deep within our depths And pull the new out from ourselves Because there is a magic that flows from Above Into our Intuition, our secret treasure trove. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
THE MAGIC MIX
The world is so varied So many different types of people The mix makes the magic Each world as distinct as it’s equal The human spirit, what a strange species That God created and sent to Earth Further than the imagination can see Diversity and depth without dearth No one person, no one tribe No one nation, no one race Can bridge alone your great divide And still your thirst for a homely place Only all of us together can Not all at once, for we are separated But by going from human to human With an open heart from land to land Will the segregated inside you be integrated. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
LET THEM INTO YOUR HEART
Kindness to refugees
is salvation for humankind.
Because kindness is the refuge
for our broken humanity,
longing for healing.
Let them in
and into your heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
SURVIVAL SHOULD NEVER BE RACIALISED
Every global problem comes with special extra dimensions of evil for Black people.
Blacks being prevented from escaping war in Ukraine. Thrown out of busses and trains. Refused entry at the Ukraine-Poland border. Many of them students. Some of them women with children.
BUT everybody wants easy access to the minerals under African soil.
War brings out the Ugliness – and the Truth – in humanity.
I feel pain. Because you want to help others. But does anybody want to help you?
You want to show solidarity with others. But no one wants to show solidarity with you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
WEAKNESS
The greatest strength
is the strength to look beyond
your own strength
and find in your weakness
strength in other people’s strength.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
#poemsthatmakeyouthink
THE GOLDEN CALF
The golden calf of modern times is racism, dressed in nationalism and tribalism, burnished by religion. And we are all dancing around it.
The modern day biblical Aarons of today agitate and invite their people to bring all their wounded or selfish volitions and angers, throw them together into one terrifying heap and build it up into a shiny mock-sacrificial lamb statue of false beauty whose enticing radiation attracts spirits of like weakness.
Then they continually polish it, dance around it and sing sickly sweet warm songs of vicious ire and malicious fire to it; and all the while they keep on feeding it with their volitions and angers and hatred, and increasing its size. They praise and dance around their worship of their own selves and their hatred of others.
But Moses is true humanity on the Mountain-top, lonely and few, who make the effort to climb to connection to the commandments of self-conquest and selfless love. Watching the madness going on down in the valley of human soul – the madness that has engulfed the entire earth, all the continents and nations and peoples. Division is the only thing that still unites humankind.
Moses is true humanity on the Mountain-top of human nobility, lonely, clarified and few, watching the madness in the valley, and wondering if there is still any hope or still any point at all in sharing with these crazy ones the knowledge and the conviction which they carry deeply imprinted upon the inner soul-pages of their calmly flaming spirit. Love thy neighbour, as thyself.
It’s been repeated for so long, that it almost sounds like a childlike joke now. But some still believe. And I guess the children shall inherit the earth.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE HEART OF HUMANITY
With love we should call our children
So that with love they will come –
With love we should welcome our children
So that with love they will glow –
With love we should rear our children
So that with love they will grow –
With love we should release our children
So that with love they will go forth
And repeat the same process
With love –
Love is the only thing that makes us human –
Love is the most fundamental thing
That we should transfer from generation to generation
Through mankind –
Love is the progenitor, propagator and preserver
Of the HUMAN race –
Without love we are nothing.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE PATH OF HONOUR
Even when you are down
Stay upon the path of honour
And when you are up too
Forget not the path of honour
It is the safeguarding of humanity
The preservation of human nature
Each time you play fair and justly
Regardless of whether it will bring you
Success or failure.
It is not only by joining the WWF
That you can save an endangered species –
Look inward; and make your contribution
By preserving the human in you.
Is there no honour in sports anymore?
Was there never any honour in politics?
To apparel one’s self in the appearance of victory:
Is this worth every means?
When we win like this, who has lost?
Is it not humankind?
The victory of money, power, praise
Upon the path of dishonorable ways
Will haunt humanity’s last days –
It has weakened us
And we have acquired the habit
Of abandoning humanity
Each time we want to achieve our goals.
But you: Deeply observe the dying species
And reflect upon the path of honour
That it still refuses to walk.
The path of honour: Walk this way.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 