Not like that.
Crown the valley.
The hilltop is smoking.
Smoking gun.
Chewing gum.
Nonchalantly tracing and caressing your
Archipelago of feelings
Like a toy ship
Boning the corset
Gargle your gift of gab
Smiling to the ravine
Love is an aspic
Softly, steer
Softly, stir
Softly, pick
Softly, kill.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There is one frozen lake
That thaws not in the spring
It is winter of wordless ache
In my awakening
In my beginning
After I awoke
I greeted the earth and forgot
The language Creation spoke
Before the big bang
And ding dong merrily on high
Once upon a time
After a bell rang
Before the big bang
A song my spirit sang
Song of flame
In tongue of flame.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
I forgot
I know not what
Because I forgot
And so I wander
And I wonder
Trying to remember.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When you see the future
It becomes the past
And the future becomes again
Unknown to you
To spend your life exploring your future
Is to spend your time scrutinizing your past
It is to miss all the joy and pain
The moment holds for you.
There is only one future
The result of what you do today
There is only one past
Tomorrow it will be today.
Love me today. Make a new tomorrow
Hope is my crystal ball
I see your heart aching for laughter
And laughter after laughter.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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.
You are afraid of a flower
She smiled sadly at me
My bosom blossoms for you
My thorns, they prick, I know
But love hurts the lover
And love hurts the loved
And I’m dying, I’m dying for you
Lie down in my grave with me
Let’s be reborn together.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I see only nothing –
Emptiness has suffocated the world.
Hollowness on the inside…
Bring yourself to the fore
And stop hiding like a scared animal
In the darkness of your fear of societal assumptions.
Stop being a learned act on the stage of life –
Stop being a masquerade in the market-place of shared dreams…
Be yourself!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
The last was the first
It burst out of the blue dark skies
And brought light! It shone
And won our hearts, our better parts, our bitter parts
Yet it was the last.
The first was like the last
It melted away softly into wintry blues
And, oozing, seemed to reunite with windows closed
And nothing more was to be said, all appeared dead.
Yet it was the first.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Life is a vineyard
I’m thinking of wine, you know wine?
Internalise life in little sips
Don’t rush me, don’t rush you
Life even then is strong enough.
Life is a graveyard
You pass it by, reluctant to look in
It scares you
Littered with the memories of the reflection
Of your certain destiny
It brings you into deepest reflection
Most sober. Life, you scare me to death.
Before I die I want to love somebody
I need to love somebody
I cannot just come and go like that
I want to love somebody with all my heart
With all my heart
At least once in my life.
And then I loved somebody and it
Was still not enough. And then I knew:
Before I die, I need to believe in something
And fight for something and live
For something more important to me
Than my own self. To be myself is
To become selfless.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Life
The bud struggling with itself
Longing to burst into flower
And sacrifice herself to the light
Nations locked in inner turmoil
Searching for the other half
Of the yellow sun
People thirsting for freedom
And then a Cadillac rolls past
A homeless person under the bridge
Their eyes meet in shock of recognition
They are the same
Or soon will be.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 