EVENING BLUES

Accept your loss
Only God is the boss
Many rivers to cross
To get to the real Us

What a quiet evening you are
Your inner voice carries far
Riding quietly in the back of the car
My listening heart is ajar.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

HURT

Love hurts.
Life hurts.
People hurt.
People hurt people.
And hurt people hurt people.

And when it hurts too much
People begin to avoid the touch
The inner touch
Sometimes they permit the outer touch
But only perfunctorily as such
Because even it hurts too much.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SHARED SILENCE, SHARED DISTANCE

Your silence deafens music
The songs don’t move me anymore
But to tears

Your absence ‘tis so loud
Woke me up with a jolt last night
And your emptiness shivered

And I recalled your poems by name
The rain, cheeky, in your hair
The palm wine melody line of dancing pain

It is our way
To do the things that cause us pain
And then share the pain with each other.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.