ONE FRIEND

If a true friend is gold, are they poor that have no friends? Or rich by default, for peace of mind is also the lot of the lonely who is spared the irony of the laughter and companionship of false friends?

How often have we met with a friend and parted from a stranger a short while later? In these days of sad revolutions and mixed allegations, of spying and cyber double lives, of migration without integration, of hospitality without sincerity, of religious justice without religious love, of racial regrouping, gender re-evaluation, and social hardening, and of eternal unchanging vices; if you have one friend, just one friend, one true friend, then you have something more precious than silver and gold.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

KNOWING ME

Someone stood by my side
In that hour when
Self-confidence is asleep
And self-belief has lost its way

In that dark hour when
All you do is question yourself
Because phantoms and demons and ghosts
Are whispering in your head

It is the hour when thieves are about
Stealing your last bit of self-worth
Under the cover of darkness
Thieves are faceless and this they know

And she was my sun when there was no sun
And she was my strength when I fell
And in my hour of deepest doubt
She kept our faith.

But one more thing she did
She took a walk through my dark side
And left signposts along the way
And told me: This is also you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

TRUE COLOURS

Every tree eventually
Bears its fruit
Look not for reason
Wait just for its season

Long is the wait when
Deep is the root
You don’t know your friend
Until the end.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.