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
————–
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.
In the tears in his eyes I saw the question
What will happen to her
When I am gone?
There was a tenderness about the way
He looked at her, spoke to her
Touched her arm with every third word
And his eyes that looked into the distance
Were not gazing back at their past
Or wondering about his afterlife
They were looking into her future and marvelling
At the fact that life goes on
Even when you’re gone.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Carry me
Marry me
Madness pain
Sadness moon
Tidal silence be violent
On me
I have seen it all
Love a lie
Hatred a voiceless bond
Treachery a given
Weakness our one true calling
I have seen enough.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When sheep undress
They become wolves
When wolves undress
They become sheep
Unclothing less
Reveals more
Of why we laugh
When we weep.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
When your friends frown at you, as you wonder what you have done wrong, remember that frowning can be a façade with which the supreme virtue in you masks its beauty, because of your envy or its love.
And when your friends smile, as you endeavour to smile along, remember too that smiling is the most convenient façade behind which the supreme vice in you can hide itself and remain undetected, unchecked.
And tears, even tears – our most sacred tears – cannot be trusted. For save when you cry to yourself alone, you betray. Friend, when you cry to me, you betray me, so long as you know why you are crying. And if you do not possess this knowledge, then it is your soul that betrays you. And you still betray me.
And, finally, there is Seeming, ah, Seeming… the supreme garment of all, which I weaved my very own self. Nothing is as dear to me as my Seeming, for it ensures that when I am with you I can feel at home without, at the same time, ceasing to feel completely at home with myself. Yes, Seeming is indeed the supreme garment, almost tending towards nature. Almost. If only it did not leave me divided amongst myselves – I cannot stand!
Façades. People hide behind façades, of ignorance or wisdom, of inarticulateness or eloquence, of bravery or cowardice. Human hides innocence and nakedness behind façades, for fear of being shunned by fellow human for being mad or simply different. We hide behind façades of which lying is barely even one. And the worst part of it all is that we have forgotten, forgotten going into hiding, forgotten who, forgotten what, we really are – and, in our gruesome attempt to belong, have finally become the façades behind which we die.
Think of a worse hell, and I’ll give you a clap.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
So the sun is yellow today
See that?
There – above the dark grey clouds
Beyond the mists and fog –
See that?
There – outside the boundary of your brooding thoughts
Beyond the clutches of your sorrow
If you look through your depression –
So plain to see,
The corner of your unsmiled smiles
Tugging at your lips
Lifting your lids – look, look
Above the tree tops in the jungle of your sadness –
Don’t you see?
The sun is golden yellow today.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I sat under a tree
Waiting for me
To come back to me
And while I was there
Two friends came to share
With me their hope and fear
A couple healthy and young
Who for long did long
To right a secret wrong
Early in their union
Confused they had given
A baby away for adoption.
And now though they try
And love and long and cry
The womb stays barren and dry
They’ve traced now doggedly
And found the family
Where their child grows happily
Today from afar
They saw them pass in a car
Saw how happy they are
Then sadly, quietly
They walked to the tree
Where I sat waiting for me.
And so did we three
Reflect thoughtfully
On history and destiny
And then we took heart
Upped and did depart
With courage and hope in our hearts.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Everyday she printed dust on feet
Earlier than sunrise
She was a surprise
To every sleeping wanderer she will meet
On her way to the well, wishing well,
An empty bucket on her head
One more in each hand that bled
On her way to hell
The well, the well is dry
It is dry, barren, unresponsive
The less you get, the more you give
The desert will never cry
Every evening she dusts her way home
Not a drop of water
To herself she will mutter
Soliloquy on when the rain will come.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
That moment
When the bitterness
Isn’t bitter enough to sour
Your forgiveness smile
And yet sad is the smile.
How friends fall away like unmasked leaves
Unable to bear the weight of trust
In all its lightness
Treachery by politeness.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 