Hard words are sometimes the kindest Foraging eyes are sometimes the blindest Life’s help is sometimes to put you to the test It pushes you to move when you long to rest I’ve never wanted something so badly before I’ve never eaten to my fill and still wanted some more I’ve never said goodbye and continued to feel so sore I’ve never been so trapped before in a folklore So many new things starting at the same time Be patient when you’re looking for the right rhyme Little doses of salt and pepper, curry and thyme Life is sometimes a little sugar, sometimes a little lime I love like Haily’s comet, ever and again I come again Laughter fills my heart again and conquers the pain I can’t explain it, I am a lake and I am the rain And so are you, and every end is just another refrain. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Laugh
ABSENCE
Random quantum sugar
Sweet on my tongue
Fleetingly I savour your love
When it comes
Unexpectedly, like a suddenly remembered dream
You never knew you once dreamed
… when?
Random how it leaps
Madness joy how it keeps
My lonely heart, how it weeps
Tonight
Unhappy to have grown used to your
Absence.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
COLOURS
There are thoughts that define
And there are thoughts that defy…
There are hearts that deny
Hearts that desire
And hearts that never run dry –
And there are hearts
That run dry –
But I won’t cry.
There were thoughts that struck me
Thoughts that thunderstruck me
And left me dumbstruck –
These are the thoughts that stuck to me…
But if we say sometimes yes
Sometimes no
Sometimes…
Yes sometimes no sometimes yes.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BEING HUMAN IN A SERIOUS AND HAPPY WAY
Walk with me
Down quiet paths in the woods
Hold my hand
Tell me about yourself…
I’ll listen and give answers where I can
I’ll listen with my heart, the heart of an honest man…
I don’t want to take advantage of you
Everything that was good in you
When you were a child
I want it to come to the fore again
When you walk by my side…
And if somewhere along the way
We lie down in some secret grove
Then it’s just me and you, baby
Being human in a serious and happy way…
I want the child we have together
To be a reflection of the child in you and me
I want our old age, our life’s evening
To be again like childhood, in the beginning…
Look into my eyes as I look into yours
Let’s hide nothing from each other, let’s have nothing to hide…
Let our quiet walk in the woods
Last longer than our life on earth…
And if somewhere along the way
We are laid down in some secret grove
Then it’s just me and you, baby
Going up our path again together
Being human in a serious and happy way.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BEING BAD AND BEING GOOD
Simultaneously..
How does that work?
When the moon is the only light
She must not be ashamed of her nakedness
If the sun feels he is so great
Well, where is he at night
When we need him the most
To keep away?
Look not upon your faults
When you laugh, let it come
From deep within and make
Your tears jealous.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
UNDROOP
Drooping, a wing, the corners of a mouth
A face, a heart, a pair of wings again
Drooping –
A second life –
All alone. What does this mean? It means
Nobody has ever grasped.
You see the flower at dusk
Which you saw at dawn
The flower recognises you and opens up to you
But you pass it by
You have gone blind
You have walled yourself in
In that moment in which
You lost your
Insight…
By and by, you learn again
To see
The same flower of always
Waiting beside your heart,
I leap.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE CHAMBER WITHIN
The head can forget what it vowed to remember
But the heart remembers even that
Which it vowed to forever forget.
A memory which you want to keep forever
Store in the intuitive base of your heart
The head is curious but sometimes too clever –
Less meddlesome is the heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE BOOK OF LIFE
You’ve judged too soon
Go, take a second look
Sometimes you’ve got to give a little room for error
’Cause you can’t always be too sure –
Don’t spare yourself a second look
Read it again – life’s just a book.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
UNDERNEATH
When sheep undress
They become wolves
When wolves undress
They become sheep
Unclothing less
Reveals more
Of why we laugh
When we weep.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
CHERISHED ALWAYS
I know you’re waiting for me to come
You know I’m waiting for you to become –
How long?
An upturned Calabash hides something
A broken mirror is still a mirror
A song unsung – is it a song?
A loveless soul – is it a soul?
When lovers part, are they still lovers?
Have they learnt how to love
Or forgotten how to love a little?
Upsidedownworld.
Turn it upsideupanddownsidedown
But leave the middle in the middle.
The world grows quiet quietly
A lone car passes now and then
A dog barks gently, night falls lightly
And the studio condenses around me again.
Who was I thinking of just now?
Where was I before evening called me back?
A heart is a thousand stories
And forgotten memories.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 