Human characters incarnate
And re-incarnate.
Each stay on another Earth is but
A continuation.
It is limited by time and
Saturated by responsibility.
There is a task…
– this is the objective happening,
always to be borne in mind.
The key to fulfilment is Love,
Always to be borne in Heart.
You running and you running and you running away,
Sang Mr. Bob Marley
But you can’t run away from yourself.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije..
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.
Souls stranded at sea
Search-pilots say they are ghosts
Whisping like clouds on frothing waves
But fishermen swear they are worried human faces
Who approach with one plea:
To send one last message back home
Before they vanish:
It will be well
Until we meet again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Her glance was taffeta
Smoothed down my trembling hands
Smoothed down my trembling hands
Oh morning glory
Oh these tremors have passed and
I’m asleep again on a Saturday morning
In the birth cradle of April.
Fresh rain, burgundy tears sprinkle sun, sprinkle dawn
Rainbows, silver and gold fingers
Then palmgreen sprouting hope hope
Then palmgreen sprouting hope.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Branded roses
Blood is your dance floor
Beast is the yeast of your flour
Your moist garden is the handle of my door
And your soup is dour.
I saw a stranger, dressed in black,
Quietly step back from your door –
I saw you, a black bird in grey skies
Flapping, rising
Hatred flaming in your chest like
A torn rose.
Yet I kissed you, don’t
Ask me why – your lips parted and I tasted
Hope on your tongue
Like a squirrel hiding in the bush.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Like a glove
Her palm fit into mine
I saw her struggling
With the shock
Recognition brought.
We tried to decipher our fate
But saw neither
Its beginning nor its end
The flask has gone out of the djini
Tracing the palm groove…
Ever the palms
Lining our every path
Kissing our everything
Wild trees become a garden, untamed…
A jungle becomes a park, intriguing…
The rivers are wetting the vallies
We clasp hands and become a palm nation.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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.
Because I love you
I love your scars
Trophies of all your wars
Because I love you
I love your ugliness
In and out of your dress
They make you special
And beautiful in my eyes.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
She saw a hunter resting in the forest
His manly shoulders
Caused the trees to heave
In expectation –
She ruffled the leaves of his hair
Placed her hand on her heart
As she read his rising thoughts
He had been waiting for her.
Tremble not, lovely maiden,
Stretch out your hands and pluck
My golden fruit
For it hath not ripened in vain
This forest whispers
Told me you were
Coming…
The hunter hath found his mark.
The queen of hearts
Has met her match.
Black grass will quiver tonight
But the forest will keep our secret, my dear.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
He loved her like the
Sun was about to fall down
Like lightning and thunder
Would be their eternal crown
And then when he’d had his fill he walked away
Now there she goes talking to herself
Each evening…
It hurts his soul
To see her cry
Yet he must go
He can’t explain why
The light and the darkness dwell inside his heart
So there she goes talking to herself
Each evening…
Trying to understand the demons in his heart
Trying hard to grasp what happened and then she starts
To blame herself for what she can’t explain
There she goes softly talking to herself
Each evening…
Each evening
Deep inside
Each evening
He’s suffering too
Too…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 