Good morning, true Morning, Child of a Blue Night Spent on an Island of Dawning By a bright Dream light. Invisible sun, I feel you coming, Son of a celestial Height Full of a gazillion suns roaming Beyond earthly sight. I saw you in my dream last night My heart awakened and took flight Driven by longing for a land of light That called me, filled me, with delight Good morning, new Morning, Born of gentle Might, Let the world be gripped by Yearning… Let there be Light! Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
sleep
FORGETTING AND FOCUSING
I dreamt that something did not arrive But think now as I may I cannot remember What it was in the night that didn’t arrive As though the memory I don’t remember Is itself what it was that did not arrive. Morning comes and I am alive Full of tomorrow’s energy and drive So I wonder what it was I forgot today I guess it must be yesterday. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
AMNESIA
It’s so easy to forget
Who you are
The longer you live like them
With them
Amongst them
Sleep is depth
Is debt
Is death
The greatest treasure on earth
Is memory
Spirit, it’s so easy to forget
Who you are
On Earth.
Everything seems normal
To sleepwalker.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
IN THE MORNING
The things we know in the morning
The moment we awaken
And from somewhere else are returning
But not yet quite retaken
By the world of thoughts that ever crowd around us
During the hours while we are fully day-conscious
Those things we know as sleep departs
Are as true as true can be
The Hour of Awakening to us imparts
The starkest clarity
It may be painful, may be pleasant
It may be quite surprising
But it is always true and doesn’t
Require verifying
Because if you did awake aright into this certainty
Events themselves will prove to you their authenticity
My thoughts are clear as sleep departs
And I see without guile
Displayed before me all those hearts
With whom I frown or smile.
————–
che chidi chukwumerije
————–
DARKLIGHT
Strike the spirit
They long for pain
The pain of breathing and moving
When the very sun begins to rain
And they die in pleasure
And feel alive again.
And to feel the sunrain
Dry and wet on soul
Burning hot
And awakening stonecold
Clarity of perception
Through a hole came the whole.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I CAN’T SLEEP
I can’t sleep
Nor can I weep
If sadness were a grey cloud
I am the bottomless lake from which it arose
I miss your laughter, your mirth
Like dawn misses a birdsong
On a cold concrete city street
Before it fades away
Each time I burn pain into you
I burn pain into me; but if I
Were to not bite and hurt you so deeply
How would you continue to think of me?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE MOON IS IT
I cherish the sight
I cherish the night
Moon-crowned… moon-found
The Poetry is so profound
That strikes the Deep
Out of its Sleep
When the fortnight is twice over turned
And the Full-Moon has returned.
I hear the lone wolf again
From the stillness of the deep and the pain
Howling from out of my Heart…
Howling from out of my Heart…
The moon…
The moon…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
SPIRIT SLEEP
A smile is made up of many wounds
A road is the sum of innumerable restless feet
Love is the pain that pleasures
And victory is defiance in the heart of defeat
But what is spirit?
Spirit is
The stranger that walks the earth
For whom death is birth
Sleepwalker swaying at deep’s edge
Unfulfilled, the promise, unremembered, the pledge.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE RIVER
Time could be a river
If I were standing still
Or a dream, if I
Had taken a sleeping pill –
But awake I meander
Through dreams which I fulfil
So I must be the river
And time is standing still.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
DAWN
I chanced to look near dawn
Out of my sorrow
And indigo was the wall
Outside my window
Surprised, I looked away
From night, my widow
Then stole another glance again
At my tomorrow
Tomorrow was in mute concert
Briefly I am my cello
Confused at my own melody
My poem, my strange bedfellow
But night is sheared now finally
Soft day echoes my hello
And as I rise, my waking thought
Sinks away into my pillow.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 