poetry

THE DANCING TOUCH

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

But require of me not that I dissect and demystify and recloak in petty words every poem, every rhyme, every song I write… and too many words obscure the subtle effect of the dancing touch of inspirational truth resting within the breast of true poetry…

Do you feel the stirring? Do you taste the salt? Do you hear the unbroken chant of spirit and light? Do you feel something…? If you do not, then you have no question. But if you do, then how come you do not understand the question in your own heart, when the language is yours and yours alone?

The dancing touch of poetry is more elocutive the less it is worded and worded too quickly…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

NOSTALGIA’S DONE

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Just now I saw a morning star, luminous in the sky high up above me. And then suddenly I see it no more. Blue-grey clouds are journeying past in silent, ominous solemnity. Morning has dawned. The birds, they are a-singing. Early people are writing their feet into the road… and I am sitting outside, writing poetry and pretending it is prose.

Perhaps by the time I am through, and raise my head anew, the clouds would have gone completely by, and my star will be visible to me again. But if not, yet still I carry within me the picture of my morning star, as luminous in my heart as it was luminous in the sky.

I suppose this is what they call Nostalgia.

Now, see: the sun is rising, and the light is come again. Star, sun and light. And there is spirit inside of me – spirit and love.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

TENDER SPOTS

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

There is in me a very soft spot for naked tables and chairs, pens and empty sheets of paper, and a feeling that if I do not write the poem write now, it will never come again. It is a very special soft spot and very dear to me, sees me through lonely nights and empty restless days and times of unfocused focus and focused unfocus and is much better than many other a pleasure.

The heart is inside, the voice outside, and a strong voice without a heart is as baseless as the pointlessness of a voiceless heart, burning and knowing and mute. I have a very soft spot in me for that quick tender urge that would have me run again, a pen upon waiting sheets, a snow-lion stalking buried treasures, a singer learning and singing new songs, simultaneously.

Water is the king and when your heart runs like water, poetry becomes an uncheckable force – everywhere you hear it… everywhere you hear it. It follows you, it enters you, it captures you until you have mastered yourself in it, then it sets you free to roam again. Yes, this is my jungle.

I have in me a so soft spot for that glowing star, yonder flame that has decided to call me Home. Yes, Song, let it ring, and with my life I will follow, poet and musician and man. There was a beginning but, I vow, there shall be no end to eternal tenderness inside you and me.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

ONLY US

~ Che ~ 12 Comments

It is not a joke;
But everyone is laughing
As though it were…

Early in the morning
I can hear voices whispering
Before dawn…
But when I peered out through the window
I saw nothing
Yet heard something
Which sounded like whispering voices
Talking to me
Telling me what to write

And I write without complaint
Even though the pain is sometimes astronomical –
Yet I write.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

EMPTY AGAIN

~ Che ~ 7 Comments

In heaven
I saw birds
Even blackbirds

So I wrote
This poem
Which is just words

And when I was done
And looked up
It was an empty sky.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

ATOP CASTLERIGG

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

It must have been on Castlerigg
Amidst the ancient stones
My spirit suddenly grew big –
Did I sense my old bones?
I felt that here within this circle
I have married you before
What some might call insensible
Or, being kind, a lore…

Why do I feel what I feel?
Your eyes tell me it’s real…
If you agree with me, then nothing else matters
Sacred are family matters –

I still see Castlerigg
The heart of a mighty circle
Of mountainous hills wise and big
Like a prototype stone circle
Built by Substantiate Beings
That walked the earth
Long before Human Beings
First came to birth.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije (Poems Inspired by the Lake District)
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PURELY, IT IS A MATTER OF LOVE

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The dance of the woman in the market
Unloosed poetry
Here it goes, there she flows
Away…

Again I was baffled
Again I was moved
And asked myself one another time:
How many rivers
Meander within one woman?

The things that men desire in women
Are nothing compared to the things
Which women only know in their silent, sleeping heart
That they can give…

And, purely, it was something
That was in paradise on the day
That you and I were born
Children of the rose
Children of love.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE BLOG GOES ON

~ Che ~ 13 Comments

Well, dear year, you’ve come and you’ve gone, like a fleeting lover. And you’ve left behind a treasure chest of memories, clothed sometimes in layers of prose and poetry, full of promise, ribboned with a thin string of mystery.

And I’ve loved every bit of you, my maturing lovely blog. What new thoughts shall we share this year? Will the hopes be new or old? For hope, yes, hope, is wine.

I am a million unspoken intuitions and more. There is always so much to share, so much more – and so many perceptions to bear witness to.

Can a stream, running, come to rest, and still be a stream? Not in reality and not in dream. And so we’ll keep on blogging, with hearts of poetry and minds of prose – literature is our calendar, with which we mark and document our passage through time, counting one day at a time.

This year too I hope to share something everyday – maybe a classic poem, maybe a short story, maybe something else… the blog goes on.

Happy New Year.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

EVEN IN A DAY’S TIME (Holy Night)

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I have heard that a new star
Is coming…
I hear it every time I return to the
Earth –
Somebody wrote it down a long time
Ago –

And everytime I reincarnate
I am confronted anew with the fact
Of the coming of a new star
A radiant star brighter than the sun
Filled with the power of all the seven heavens…

I have seen this Star.
I saw it once before I was born
I saw it from atop a Mountain before I was unborn
And I have no doubt that one day
It will have come much too close to the earth
For us to be able to do any other thing
Than burn down, burn up or become eternally burning flames
Of spiritual light, paradisiacal fire
Beyond the understanding of a new generation
And a new earth.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FOR WE ARE ONE

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Your face I know
But not your name
Your faces I know
But I know not your Names…

We meet everyday, everywhere
Our vibrations, our radiations never were parted
From one another –
I know you, I love you, you are my Home
On earth.

Hold me, Song of Eternity, like we were
One.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.