poetry

WRITING IS THE HAPPINESS OF SORROW

~ Che ~ 8 Comments

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.

KINDNESS BEYOND POETRY

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

Be kind to people
Let kindness be your all, your strength, your gift
Your highest art-form, beyond craft
For you are human

Kindness is life
Kindness is the root of eternity smile
Kindness can move mountains
Can conquer pain
Gives us comfort in our hour of desolation
Kind eyes keep the heart alive

Kindness conquered me
Let kindness conquer you too
Become a servant of kindness
Become a master of hearts.

The naïve are not always naïve
Sometimes they are simply grateful to kindness
For kindness shown and kindness received
And now they too are passing kindness on to others
For one who has been saved by kindness
Will serve kindness evermore

Nothing sets a human heart free
Like the heartbeats of kindness deep within
Sometimes it’s difficult, sometimes it’s easy
Sometimes you forget, sometimes you remember

And in the moment of your death
It will be your acts of Unkindness that haunt you
And make you long for another life, another chance…

And it will be your acts of kindness
And the acts of kindness shown to you
That comfort you, give you hope
And show you the way into life after death

You are not alone.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MAKING MUSIC

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

This guitar I remember
Was once a part of my life
A most tender member
A most precious joint
The soil of the start
The point of the matter
The giver of self, she gave herself up…

This guitar I remember.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

RETURN TO RECOGNITION

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Years pass
And all you do
Is return to the same
Recognition –

All the searching and adventuring
And experiencing and reflecting
Have only taken you
In a circle back to the Recognition
You acquired
The first time you were good…

There’s really only one way of doing it aright
Morally…
And you’ll have to come back to it
One day.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

ALL OR NOTHING

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

The entire I gave
While smallness was all
She ever wanted.
But the rest of me thirsts too.

When frivolity was laughing
At its own shadow
I warned
That my heart was dripping…

When superficiality was doing the maths
Around its own tunnel vision
I insisted
My heart is dripping out…

When cunning was blind to the metaphor
Of its own despair
I fell silent
And listened to the sound of bleeding feet

Walking away.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LAKE SPIRIT

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

My heart weeps, a baby
Another mountain stream
Seeking a lake
After which it longs, a Lover
Longing for completion
During the course of a life-long journey
Into the eternal sea.

My heart cries for that presence
That was his quiet audience
On a walk across a Valley
In a Cumbrian mystery –

Spirit, I know you can move
Through time and space. Find me, do,
Meet me, be with me, deeply,
No matter where I wander
Or rest my head at night – stay close, meander
Like a melody in my Soul…

I’ve run out of control
Searching for my Goal.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

A BEND IN THE ROAD BETWEEN GRASMERE AND RYDAL

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Lake Grasmere

My heart won’t stop beating
The urge to remember
A certain curve of the road
That leads out of Grasmere
Towards Rydal
Where the motor road and the lake
Part the wanderer’s feet
Step upon an earthen path that shall
Unhurrying though the trees
Curve the curving lake into the little bridge
At the lake’s dove tail, brought us
To the shore at the foot of a hill
Where, turning, we face
Far across Grasmere lake
The enchanting rough and tumble
Chained Cumbrian hills…

Like a worried teacher
Anxious that the fleeting pupil
Fully absorb what he, left alone
Must one day on his own remember
Drawn out of the depths of a retentive heart
That wasn’t deaf and blind
When it wandered this path, admiring nature
With such peculiar urgency does this curve in the road
Where the road and the lake separate
And the woods begin, stand
Before my inner eye
Like an evening star long after the Sun has died…
A trigger, for when I focus
On that turn of the road, I see again
The rest of the walk
That followed it
Continues to follow me.

A familiar friend
A giving, undemanding lover
A memory already more precious
Than Silver and Gold.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
(Cumbrian Lines: Poems inspired by the Lake District)

THE WALL

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Ten thousand windows
Without a latch –
The light streams in
Sound vibrates in
But there is no air
And so we die
The sun on our faces
The singing of the world in our ears.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE MAGIC WAND

~ Che ~ 5 Comments

Once upon a time

A magician turned
Himself into a magic wand

And turned his magic wand
Into himself.

There they go
The magician and his wand.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

ABOMINATION

~ Che ~ 11 Comments

My feet are stepping on me
My souls are brutalised
My grass is Thorn, apart

Strangers
Are laughing in glee
But my children do not understand

It is the foolish lizard
Who nods along wisely
To the snake’s slithering sermon

A child slaps his father
And corrects him
Did you hear the sky fall down?

Are you not ashamed?
If it is wisdom,
Why is it vestigial?

A short tree, shorter than me
Has peed on me –
Can I take it like a man?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.