My heart was broken
Over and over and over again by life
Until I was sure
That life really loves me
Or else it wouldn’t keep on opening me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
pain
PAIN LIKE A STREAM
Like a stream runs this ancient heart of mine. I write truest and best when I am in pain and all alone; this is when I write down tomorrow’s pieces. Not when I am happy and relaxed; lazy, immature me.
When I have comfort, I forget, I become complacent. When there is peace, I laugh, which is good, but I also fall asleep, which is dangerous and wrong.
Maybe two thousand years from now I will be mature enough to be happy and be inwardly mobile simultaneously –
Pending this day, however, pain will be the helper of the Poet and of the wanderer. Pain and love and longing. To Keep me awake, to drive me onwards…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
NATURE OR PROPENSITY
For people who, by nature, are partner-faithful and relationship-loyal (I’m talking Sex here), there exists in their inside a great big Why when they observe how a person who they know really loves his/her partner with all his/her heart can have a sexual interchange with a third party – one time, or for a shorter or longer period, or intermittently – and yet remain totally committed to and in love with their chosen “permanent” partner. Is it a predisposition or a weakness?
It’s like a puzzle, a mystery that defies solution.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
REFLECTIONS ON TRANSITION
The earth is the mother
And the physical body the womb
In which the soul incubates and grows
Before birth into the beyond.
Each time we on earth are born
We have but been sunk
As a seed into a surrogate mother’s womb
To grow there a little strong.
Death is but the midwife
Dying the throes of labour and pain
Someone misses you each time you are born
Something receives you back at death again.
And all the things you did on earth
Shall be as a dream in the womb
So heed your spirit even while in the flesh
For it alone remembers its home.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MEMORIES
The beach was a friend
Whose waves like fingers
Wrapped themselves around
The hooves of the horses on
Which Kwame and I flew across wet sand
And Daddy took lost pictures
In the background, barefooted
While Mummy and Azuka
Laughed at us cheerfully.
Bar Beach on a Saturday
Long gone away.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
THE SPLIT
I’m quiet tonight
Never mind that it’s morning
I’m still dreaming
I remember a friend
We had high hopes for his future
Yet he chose the Easy
Now I’m all alone
On the road we once chose together
Watching it grow longer
This pain I keep inside
Greater than death, worse than loss
Treachery’s dungeons.
If I doubted reincarnation
This life has taught me a bitter lesson
For I must come again
The work is unfinished
The cards will be reshuffled
I will come again.
Then I hear, so soft
The sounds of morning dawning
The past is over now.
Those words, those strange words
That baffle the minds of politics
Of culture and science
You can call me Fool
You can call me mad, and yet
You too will come again.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
LIVE, PAIN, LOVE
It’s just life
No pause
Inescapable laws
No brakes
No breaks
No breaking out – you’re done in
Few gives, few takes
The dark is near
It is in there
It’s always there
It’s just life
You pay the price – that’s your role
There is a myth, a legend
A hurt-filled, painful, word
They call it love
There are no guarantees
But they say
It will set you free – nothing more
It won’t bring you wealth
It won’t bring you power
It’s just life
Keep it warm
Keep it safe
Keep it alive – love – it’ll keep you alive.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
PAIN’S PLEASURES
Pain kills
Pain heals
Pain thrills
It steals
And wills
And feels
And it chills
When pain rhymes
It rhymes with the times
And when it doesn’t
It doesn’t matter
Pain only rhymes when it matters.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
PAIN
If you avoid pain, you avoid life
If you avoid life, you avoid youth
If you avoid youth, you avoid love
If you avoid love, you avoid experiencing
If you avoid experiencing, you avoid growth
If you avoid growth, you avoid change
If you avoid change, you avoid strength
If you avoid strength, you avoid happiness
If you avoid happiness, you avoid disappointment
If you avoid disappointment, you avoid movement
If you avoid movement, you avoid adventure
If you avoid adventure, you avoid surprise
If you avoid surprise, you avoid bravery
If you avoid bravery, you avoid horizon
If you avoid horizon, you avoid knowledge
If you avoid knowledge, you avoid yourself
If you avoid yourself, you avoid beauty
If you avoid beauty, you avoid challenge
If you avoid challenge, you avoid night
If you avoid night, you avoid dawn…
Do not fear Pain. It is the proof that you live,
The outgrowing of yourself
The door that separates you from your dreams.
Cross it.
The acceptance, experiencing and mastering of pain
Is the seed out of which the tree of life shall blossom
In all its rich manifestation…
For you.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
ROUGH FRUITS
I need everything
And I need dearth
I squeeze the leaven
To open the girth
My hour is eleven
Narrow, not straight
Rough sun having
Your fun on my mirth
When you burn my raven
Rekindle my hearth
I need Heaven
But I also need Earth.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
