Brave fool
You spoke the truth
Now it’s fallen off your shoulder
Breathe easy
When you look into the distance
Your eyes aren’t distracted by your thoughts
You see the observant trees
The bird minding its business
For your conscience is clear
Heavy is the hand that holds the knife
That strikes you down
Heavy is not thine heart. It is light.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Wait, morning wind
Wait for my awakening
For I bring a sun
Today shall be another day
Of the same old depressing news
Of hatred, xenophobia, corruption and wars
If I didn’t have this sunlight
Rising daily in my soul
I would think the world were ending
Now my sun is risen
Now rise too, my morning wind
For the old world is ending.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Why we sorrow, what we know
No tomorrow, yet we sow
Because this night, because this night
Because this night
Will crack
Light, light, I see tomorrow
Through a crack so slight and mellow
There’s a tiny track
The pain, though great
Will end.
The rain, though late
The rain, though late
The rain, though late
Shall bend
Our way again, this I know
Though we sorrow, yet we know
We’ll smile again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There is gold
In your blood
Blue in you
And best of all
When you say How do you do
You mean it too –
Your gold I want not
Your blueblood I wish I could wash out
For it would only be a burden –
But you make me lighter
Each time I see how the people’s eyes shine brighter
When you enter the room.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Peoples of different origins
Colonised my heart
And raised therein an edifice
Of loneliness
And treasured dreams…
Look now at the liquid mountains
Luminous and eternal
Which have become my spirit’s
Backbone
Liquid mountains of moving light…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
Inside each liquid mountain
Within each luminous elevation
Is a heart
Of gold, of fire, of love…
So love me forever, my dear.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Before we landed
I saw a rainbow
It came right through my window –
It curved and curved
Until its ends met one another in a circle
A rainbow circle
I shall take with me
To men on earth this rainbow
That I caught in the skies –
Reflect it shall my smile
My every word shall echo it
My every look shall project a rainbow
Into everyone who loves me back
This year. We shall unite
In a circle and, in Love, be one.
This is the year of Love.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Spirit flame in the world of it-doesn’t-matter
Radiant star never-the-less in the darkness
Night is a blessing for lost dreamers
It is the world-wanderer’s permanent address
Night makes the seeing blind
And the insight sharp as blade
The fire within will warm the cold
Feet of dew
Young mind, never mind
The world well and shiny made
It is for the old
You were born to bring the new.
– 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.
Bold of heart and stonecold must you be
And extraordinary too, gentle one
If in these days the bad news on TV
Doesn’t strike fear into that heart of yours!
Because mankind is still not free.
But listen, listen to me now, lamb and dove
The hour approaches when on a dark empty street
You shall be the last lantern still shinning as from above
And no-one, not even you, will understand fully why
In these days of hatred your heart grows stronger with human love.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Watch that hatred bang
Its head on the wall
Watch it struggle against a bridge
Over a gorge, dig a hole and fall
Hear it, baffled, ponder into the night.
The middle is thinning out into left and right
I know you don’t believe in the light
Because it’s hard to believe in something
You don’t understand –
It’s safer to hate in numbers
For the logic of hatred is easy to comprehend
Only a few will be left standing
After love has conquered the land.
Tread soft, haters, you’re walking on quicksand.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 