Literature murders poetry
Fine Arts murders art
Education murders the spirit
The intellect stands victorious over the intuition
The dead over the living
The darkness over the light
Human is dead for now
Tomorrow human will die the greater death.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
A moment of poems passes away
And the nostalgia doth arise
Always the same and always, I pray
That it again’ll tomorrow materialise
Cross my path, call of heaven
Breath of heaven, touch of heaven
Cross my path again, from heaven
Whisper someone, touch me, whisper, free me
Break me loose from the cycle of words
I want the Other Poem.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
I still think about you
Still remember your heart
Special it was, like a house of virtue
And, like all things special, it did up and depart
But the longing, the softening, the striving , the yearning
Some start the downing, some start the burning
But you by-passed the normal poles, and noiselessly, soft
Noiselessly opened and bore me aloft.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
If you keep it free and open
It will find a friend
It will make a headway into
Yet another start
If you act like you were rhyming
Though you’re far from it
Those who dance along will wander
Why no-one else hears
The masterpiece within the picture,
Why nobody feels
The music in the melody
The magic in the air.
—————
che chidi chukwumerije
—————
The hidden feather
There and not there
Fluttering, silent, soft
Bearing a great thing aloft.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
Duet with Helenvalentina
On the morning I ached
For the memory of the night
When my soul within was stricken
Before ineffable light
And the face of one remembered
Was unutterably bright
In the mounts of memory
Hidden, this valley
Where you sang a sun
To birth, rise in glory
Spirit of immortality
Half-seen-and-unseen you pull me
From these ancient hallways
I witnessed the reign
Of a long yearned for god child
Returned to this plain
And I fell, not from weakness
But from fervour regained
And yet in truth we both know
‘Tis all half-truth and metaphor
Cloaking what it claims to unveil
Our thirst for less and more
Less of hide-and-seek
And more of flame and fervour
Ah and here the sweet pain
That rends through my soul
The numinous so fleeting
To encompass us whole
And yet then it’s just whispers
Where shadows unfold.
———————————————-
by Helenvalentina and Che Chidi Chukwumerije
———————————————-
I’m feeling down today
The perfect mood
For poetry
He’s played the music
So long
He’s lost in the music now
That musician on stage
Is an echo of the poetry
Eating me inside.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
There is a graveyard thence
With benches placed all over
Where people come a-steady
To ponder life and death
There is a certain bench
Apart from every other
Where I sit when poetry
Takes clean away my breath.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There are many roads
But only one will lighten your load
The question is
What price are you prepared to pay?
Life gave me a lemon tree
A pinch of love will feed the multitude
The bearer of the word will walk on wind
And disappear unseen, grateful to have simply been
Himself.
What price are you prepared to pay?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Writing is the happiness
Of sorrow
The immortal spirit
Of mortality
The voice that needs
No mouth
The painting whose canvas is
The reader’s mind.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
———-
In 2013 I gave myself the luxury of publishing two books of poems on my birthday – today 6th April.
One is titled “WRITING IS THE HAPPINESS OF SORROW“, the idea for which came with the poem above which I wrote some time ago.
The other is “THE BEAUTIFUL ONES HAVE BEEN BORN” which is specific to my continent Africa.
In 2015 I reprinted them.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 