Sometimes you can‘t really tell When or why you lost interest in a person When exactly the bondage fell And you finally understood life’s lesson Being mediated to you through them A fallen leaf is a priceless gem It mothers and yields a new rising stem. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
separation
UNVERMEIDBARE SCHMERZEN
In einander gehen
Oder sich voneinander trennen
So oder so
Es wird schmerzen
Zur Integration
Müssen alle Ja sagen
Zur Separation
Kann einer die Entscheidung tragen
So oder so
Es kommt von Herzen
Gewinne und Verluste
Es wird schmerzen.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Im Jahrzehnt der Deutschen Dichtung
SOFTLY’S SONG
Seven times we spoke out our love
And it was done
Readily we tread where doves still rove
Steadily we dance on into the grove
Within the sun, upon
The vow of a million and one words unspoken
Veiling the secret that dreams on unwoken
Tomorrow our love-vow shall reappear, unbroken,
And we shall be one.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE SPLIT
I’m quiet tonight
Never mind that it’s morning
I’m still dreaming
I remember a friend
We had high hopes for his future
Yet he chose the Easy
Now I’m all alone
On the road we once chose together
Watching it grow longer
This pain I keep inside
Greater than death, worse than loss
Treachery’s dungeons.
If I doubted reincarnation
This life has taught me a bitter lesson
For I must come again
The work is unfinished
The cards will be reshuffled
I will come again.
Then I hear, so soft
The sounds of morning dawning
The past is over now.
Those words, those strange words
That baffle the minds of politics
Of culture and science
You can call me Fool
You can call me mad, and yet
You too will come again.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
ONCE
Some things happen but
Once
In a lifetime…
It was here, it was there
It was where?
It is where?
It is gone…
It will never return.
-che chidi chukwumerije
DADDY DEAR
Ashes to ashes…
Dust to dust…
Spirit to spirit…
Have mercy, o Holy Ghost!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Another anniversary of the day I beheld for the last time the noble countenance of my father. Then we closed the coffin and confered his cloak into the warm arms of Mother Earth. And set the spirt free for the Flight back Home. Always in my fondest Memories, Daddy dear… 22.5….
(Pic: my first day in Boarding School, Sep 1995 – King’s College. Lagos)
AGAIN
The punishment for being brave
Is having nothing to do
But be brave –
A tidal wave is rising in my soul.
The reward for being brave
Is having to do nothing
But be brave –
A tidal wave is crashing in my soul.
She warmed her cold tongue with
The flaming words of a passionate poet and
Lashed a gutter of decadent lava on
My soul.
Yet I told her still the truth
Again and again and again
And again and again, again
And again.
– che chidi chukwumerije
ABSENCE
Random quantum sugar
Sweet on my tongue
Fleetingly I savour your love
When it comes
Unexpectedly, like a suddenly remembered dream
You never knew you once dreamed
… when?
Random how it leaps
Madness joy how it keeps
My lonely heart, how it weeps
Tonight
Unhappy to have grown used to your
Absence.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
LEAVING
There was a girl
the fruit of her labour
Was the world
With a cry of pain and a shout of joy
She gave birth to the world
And primitive was the world
Harsh the lips that burned her nipples
Rough the tongue that broke her word
And we’re still here today
The earth is still not enough
Mother has become a stranger
The outcasts have grasped their destiny.
-Che Chidi Chukwumerije..
COLOURS
There are thoughts that define
And there are thoughts that defy…
There are hearts that deny
Hearts that desire
And hearts that never run dry –
And there are hearts
That run dry –
But I won’t cry.
There were thoughts that struck me
Thoughts that thunderstruck me
And left me dumbstruck –
These are the thoughts that stuck to me…
But if we say sometimes yes
Sometimes no
Sometimes…
Yes sometimes no sometimes yes.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 