Love

HEARTBREAK AND PROMISES, TOGETHERNESS, FAREWELLS AND SILENCE

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

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To make a promise to love another person, forever, and then to break this promise and say, Goodbye baby… awakens within the hearts of everybody who hears of it a memory of their own broken and unspoken promises.

Noise everywhere. Noise in my head. Noise even in the centre of silence. Lovers are what sages once were, and vice versa. Heartbreak and promises, togetherness, farewells and silence are all trying to resolve themselves within our hearts.

I should never have told you that I loved you, but how could I but not tell the truth? Evermore I understand the importance of silence. Our hearts are broken in silence: a small token to pay for the new powers which soon and steadily awaken in silence within us.

One who can bear the pain of heartbreak; one who can say goodbye and yet always be there; one who can preserve promises in silence unbroken; will read these lines with a knowing smile.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE MOUNTAIN OF LONGING

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In everybody’s deepest heart
Towering and strange
A something which no map can chart
And beyond every range

The mountain of longing

This must be love, this must be love
Immortally the same
Through every mile of earth it dove
Seeking nor friend nor fame

Out in the distant sea it grows
Re-calling you and me
Out in the distant fields it snows
On in infinity

This must be life, this must be life
This must be where we were
You are my heart, my joy, my wife
Here, there and everywhere…

The mountain of longing.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

GOLD AND DAWN, SONGS, LONELINESS AND STRENGTHS

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Gold glitters, but if all that glitters were gold, the world would be a place of great glitter and much emptiness.

Dawn ever arrives. No matter how dark the night, it will melt away when dawn awakens the travelling sun, and there will be laughter when you hear the voices of children playing in the morning…

Songs are a thing that are born mysteriously, and every moment everywhere hath its own songs too and there is no end to songs and games – and this has often mystified me.

And loneliness is a guest that comes and goes as he pleases, and once you get used to him, he becomes easy to live with and, together, both of you achieve many things which on your own you could not achieve, even if the whole world were to aid you.

There are some masterpieces which only lonely artists can create. There are some wars which only an army of lonely soldiers can win. There is a certain love which only two lonely hearts can share with one another. And loneliness seeks itself in you – but when loneliness goes away from you again, do not follow.

I am not strong. But when I unite with golden dawn and lonely songs, they make me the canvas on which they paint their dreams, and I am strong again. And free.

Gold and dawn, songs, loneliness and strengths.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

YOUR TREE

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The tree you planted in my heart
Has grown strong…
The longer we remain apart
The more to each other we belong…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

WITHOUT WORDS

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It must be hard for you
To be the subject
– or is it the object?
or is it the heart? –
Of so many poems.

When you stumble, remember:
I love you and you love me

Even if there be no poems
Even if there be no songs
No mountains, no photos, no words…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FRIENDS AND CASTLES, LAKES, MOUNTAINS AND MYSTERIES

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Friends are true friends when they will not go away from you in search of something which they merely sense that you can give them; and they can wait a thousand years for you, because they simply love you.

Castles are places where those who have love can live without guilt, and those who have no love cannot live without guilt, because every castle is an amalgamation of the qualities of the souls that inhabit it. Castles breathe.

Lakes, although they treasure a mystery, will only show you your own face, and if you must know what lies inside the heart, then you must break through the face on the surface of the lake. Lakes speak never.

Mountains are mighty until you have conquered them… and then they become mightier than ever, each mount, but now you know why it stands there, because you have crowned it. Even after you die, the mountain will remember those who crowned him once, and forever; and when you return again, he will whisper your name not once, but thrice… mountains live forever in my heart. You are my heart, sweet woman.

Friends and castles, lakes, mountains and mysteries.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MEMORIES OF FALKENSTEIN

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The years have raced by
Yet our story is not begun
Two hearts cannot cry
Without reason, and upon
My heart I see the snowclad valley again
The mist, the promise, the joy and the pain
And I know it simply
Surely and firm
Our river runs deeply
Unbroken, fullterm

Be not afraid to follow yon distant star
Until you love me, you won’t know who you are.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FALKENSTEIN

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There she perches, haunted…
The ruins of a castle once loved;
Haunted by love…

There she perches, haunted…
The ruins of a castle once loved;
Haunted by love…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

- Nov/Dez, 1995. Ich an der Burgruine Falkenstein bei Pfronten in Ostallgäu.
– Lange her. Nov/Dez, 1995.
Ich an der Burgruine Falkenstein bei Pfronten in Ostallgäu – Quelle fast aller meiner frühen “Castle” und “Ruins” und “Burgruine” und “Schloss” und ähnliche Gedichte.

INSIDE KNOWLEDGE

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It is her voice that buckles my knees
When she breaks and says please
I break and say please
This is the power of a woman
I can match her strength
But her power makes me powerless.

She might not know everything about me
But she knows the thing about me
That weakens and conquers and strengthens and completes me
This is the power of a woman
It is the power of insight
Because she came from inside.
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Learn well this lesson:
Strength is what you have inside you
Power is what you have inside another person
Even when that person is stronger than you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MIRACLES

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Stories.
Like the one about the sad horse
Who came upon a silver lake
And assuaged her thirst.
Tomorrow she will wake up
To suddenly find that
She has begun to sprout wings…
Yet she will not turn into an eagle
But will remain a horse
Even after her wings have matured
Because sometimes
Horses are permitted to own their own wings
If they will fly up to there
As hoped
And not just fly down to there
As feared…

I believe
In horses with wings…
In fairies that, unobserved, observe us…
In animals than can read the thoughts of humans…
In babies that knew their own names
Even before they were born…
In love that does not die

Stories.
Like the one about
Two children who climbed
An old tree
And, when they came down,
Had already become adults again.
Tomorrow they will
Become children for a second time
The children they were
First meant to be

Stories. Stories. Stories.

I believe in miracles
I believe I can fly
I believe in you, Baby
Love is a miracle of life

Stories.
Like the Oracle
That predicted its own demise
But did not live
To see whether its prediction came true or not…
Stories.
Like the three sisters
Who did not know they were sisters
Until after they had all fallen in love
With the same man…
Stories. Stories.
Like the creation of the world
The adventures of the roving stars
The mysteries in the bowels of the earth –
Like the tired old widow who
Came upon a wishing-well and
After gratefully satiating her thirst
Flipped a coin
And wished the wishing-well well..
Stories.
Like the refugee
Who asked for just a little water and bread
And got it not
Yet could not figure out how to hate…
Stories.
Mysteries.
Oracles.
Miracles.

Everybody
Has a history
But some histories
Are outside everybody

If you were to behold a miracle
Now
Would you recognise it as one?
Probably not.

Miracles
Follow me
From life to life
Place to place
Face to face

There is a Green Hill
Far far away in unsullied fields
Where there be no Death
Once upon a time
Love
There is a miracle called love.
Amen.

Thirty days to Christmas
And here I am
Writing poems
And thinking just of you, my dear.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.