The day the laughter came again I stood in shock and stared at it in awe Like a stranger from a distant terrain For I had forgotten to a tragic flaw How laughter sounds and makes you feel. It felt so good it made me want to cry; The power of laughter and joy is real - A heart that laughs purely will never die. The day the laughter came again I was at the lowest ebb of my life, My soul wracked every day by pain, Torn by questions and unresolved strife, I woke up that morning and prayed to God, then set out to bravely meet the day And as I, work-focused, did onward plod, Laughter came to me again along my way. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
sadness
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER
For whom shall I write now? For whom shall I fight now? Who shall shine the light now That illuminates my heart? Lovers don’t turn into friends, They turn into strangers. Life the gardener tends Both safeties and dangers. But when November ends, December births mangers And shines new light to my heart. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
JEWELS AND THORNS
Somewhere it‘s day Somewhere it’s night Some hearts are sad Some with joy bright But even as the world Continues to spin The happy turn sour The sad grow a grin Sometimes you’re glad Sometimes you’re down Jewels and thorns Adorn the human crown What makes us human? The ability to weep And then laugh again For our heart is deep. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
HAPPY PEOPLE
If you’re mad, and you know you’re mad, are you mad?
If you’re in heaven, and you’re not happy, are you in heaven?
If you have everything, and you’re empty, do you have anything?
If you have nothing, and you’re full, do you have nothing?
What’s the point in being able to explain the Laws of God to everybody, if you lack the courage to live the paths that will reveal yourself to you.
Some people have the courage to show you God, but they don’t have the courage to show you themselves. It is not God that is shrouded in strange mystery, it is the human being.
Don’t tell me about God – you can’t. Tell me about yourself. Show me who you really are. That’s difficult enough. But that’s the knowledge we reciprocally need, between and amongst ourselves, in order to be able to live happily with one another.
And happy coexistence, as ourselves, with ourselves: that is our Paradise.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
KNOWING
Ignorance is bliss
Yet I choose torture
Nature left a space
For growth via Nurture
Pain is the price I gladly pay
To be at home in my own Skin
The sadness is without
The Lion is within.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BELIEF
Sometimes when you kill a person, he keeps on living because he does not know that you have killed him. He keeps on living because he believes in you and it is this belief that keeps him alive. Until the day he learns that you already killed him, long ago. Then he dies.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
YOU SAID
You said you were coming
I said I’d be waiting
You said you wouldn’t be long gone
I said I’d be waiting
You said it was only temporary
I said I’d be waiting…
Nine breaths
Nine years
Nine life-times
And I’m still waiting.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MUSICIANS
When the sadness
Coloured the smile
Of the musician’s sunshine
I saw that his joy
Had just got deeper
And the unshed tears
Longing in his eyes
Were less bitter
Than they were bittersweet
To my ears
Music to my heart
Water to my soul – his sorrow
Became the joy of my spirit flame.
That was when I saw him smile
That broke my heart.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
THE HAPPY SADNESS OF MUSICIANS
Every Tuesday
They gather here
A flock of wild geese
And play for nobody
Their smiles
Each time their smiles
Break my heart
Open Stage
Not a dime
What’s their crime?
Listen in
To the sound of happiness
It is full of sadness
Life is music
Friends are memory
Death is immortality.
————–
che chidi chukwumerije
————–
WAVING GOODBYE
When I started to interact with you
Little did I understand
That true friendship is an addiction
Too hurtful for lonely people
Metamorphosis from yesterday’s amnesia
To today’s cage of painful memories
Was like dawn that swiftly recedes
Unobserved.
The numbing melody of a thousand shards
Crashing to the splintered ground
Is a sad song
Yet I must dance alone.
Life has petalled pain
With the scent of a red rose
A caged rainbow beats in my chest
Like Harmattan waving goodbye to the rains.
-Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 