NEIGHBOURS

TREACHERY

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

Was I not perhaps there with them, beneath the bombs and amidst the bullets and amongst the kids that died too easily, too early, and never rose again? Was I not perhaps there with them amidst the hoping and the despairing and the neighbours that turned too easily, too quickly, too happily, into foes – was I not really there? Aye, was I not perhaps there too, I wonder, was I not? I sometimes seem to see again the metalbirds dropping parcels of eager death and ripping the way open for birth, the painful birth of a new generation unafraid of guns, bombs and nuclear threats, and wary only of the little lies that neighbours and friends are ever wont to tell.

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– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

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NEIGHBOURS

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

Do you hear that wailing?
Somebody is dead next door
Someone is left behind and weeping
Behind heaven’s closed door
Another earthlife is ended forevermore

Quietly I watch the lights of the siren
As they grow brighter in the distance
Soon they cover up my neighbour’s silent scream
Then all grows quiet for one instance
Death welcomes every circumstance

I know that couple next door
They never failed to say hello
Now one of them I will hear nevermore
But whenever I see the other’s sorrow
I will smile and say, gently, hello.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.