Some things don’t seem to make sense And yet they’re right. You just feel it inside. The intuition accompanies common sense And makes it make sense from another side. Life when seen through the heart’s full lens Will reveal contexts that otherwise hide; To a closed mind they appear like nonsense But one day through facts they’ll be verified. Some things that seemed to be an offence Are an offence only to the rigidified; Some that seemed real become pretence When eventually exposed by time and tide. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
masks
TIME IS TOO LONG SOMETIMES
You have to wait a little while to really Get to know people’s character truly If you let them unfold themselves freely Around you they will unravel duly - Yes, they will start with a façade first ideally But the heart, the heart, the heart is unruly It will break rank and show itself verily Eventually, for patience grinds masks cruelly To submission. Truth emerges voluntarily. Not every friend is a friend Not every enemy is an enemy But sometimes you have to wait till the end To recognise each person clearly. Unfortunately by then it might be too late To correct what happened at the gate. You let the wrong person in And kept the wrong person out - O voice within, o voice within, o voice within, Help me to accurately check people out. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
FRONT AND BACK
Some will want Wanting will be their front Some will taunt Taunting will be their front Some will flaunt Flaunting will be their front And some will be gaunt But it won’t be a front It will be real, for wont Of everything they want. Everything they lack - A place to call their own, The feeling of being at home - They want it back. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
MASKS
I saw suddenly one day that there on our face is a mask. Strange, but it moved. It spoke. It smiled. It frowned. It scolded. And it watched the world obliquely.
And the last thing it will tell you is that it is a mask.
And only love can break into this mask and comprehend its bearer. And only love can break into this mask and be comprehended by its wearer.
And then to my horror I saw that every continent has its masks. Every race, every group and every face. But whoever is unmasked by love is masked by love.
And love can speak, can comprehend every tongue. And on the day we have all learned to speak the language of true love – respectful, selfless love – we shall have no more the need to mask our hearts anymore.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MASKING MASKS
What you see is but a mask, not a face, not the true face, but a mask, a facade, masking the first mask, the true mask which once upon a time was the face of a human soul. But now it’s a mask, the real mask, masking nothing again but emptiness. The mask becomes the life, the life becomes the mask, masking everything, but unable to mask our emptiness.
So when you finally succeed in unmasking one, it would do you good to bear in mind that the face you discover underneath is again nothing but another mask. And you keep unmasking them, one mask after another, one lost dream after another, one tomb after another.. and all you see are masks, masking masks, round and round the mulberry bush. And when you finally begin to ponder and wonder: But where then is the human, the wearer of all these masks? Where are we? What are the masks hiding, then, if all we encounter are masks?…
Then, dear friend, you must understand that the ugliest of all these masks is now the human being himself, and what we are hiding is the fact that we have lost our true face forever.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MASKING PRIDE
What’s behind the veil?
Nothing. The veil is your face
I don’t need a mask
My face masks my thoughts
The reason why I don’t hide things
Is because the best hiding places
Are out there in the open
That’s why you don’t see it
You don’t believe the things I tell you
Because I tell them to you
But if I were to hold them back
You would start to look for them in my Silence
And you would look and look
Until you became a prisoner of my Silence
So why don’t you appreciate it
When I just tell you in plain simple words
That I love you?
I killed you when I took off your mask
Now you want to kill me, by putting
A new different one back on.
But I already saw the girl within
Hidden deeper than shame and sin
Struggling with the pain within
And Pride is her middle name.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 