It is love.
You cannot
Mathematize it.
It will
Mesmerize
Scandalize
Legalize
Illegalize
And always leave Questions
Behind.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
truth
ACHE
There is in me a longing
For a place
A longing which no place on earth
Can satisfy
Because I long for Home –
There is in me a yearning
For a love
A yearning which no human love
Can satisfy
Because I yearn for the Light –
But, on the other side of
The mountain peak
There is a woman to whom my
Heart belongs…
But there she is, beyond my reach
Just a tear away –
But I do not know how to cry.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
SLIPPERY
I have seen
That Evil
Is deep
It has silenced me
For where it nests
Is the noiseless depth
Pay no attention to my words
They are a distraction
If you want to hear my message
Listen to my silence
My words will show you the way into my silence
Where I talk of treachery no words can describe.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MOUNTAINS LIQUID, MOUNTAINS LUMINOUS
Peoples of different origins
Colonised my heart
And raised therein an edifice
Of loneliness
And treasured dreams…
Look now at the liquid mountains
Luminous and eternal
Which have become my spirit’s
Backbone
Liquid mountains of moving light…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
Inside each liquid mountain
Within each luminous elevation
Is a heart
Of gold, of fire, of love…
So love me forever, my dear.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
TENDER SPOTS
There is in me a very soft spot for naked tables and chairs, pens and empty sheets of paper, and a feeling that if I do not write the poem write now, it will never come again. It is a very special soft spot and very dear to me, sees me through lonely nights and empty restless days and times of unfocused focus and focused unfocus and is much better than many other a pleasure.
The heart is inside, the voice outside, and a strong voice without a heart is as baseless as the pointlessness of a voiceless heart, burning and knowing and mute. I have a very soft spot in me for that quick tender urge that would have me run again, a pen upon waiting sheets, a snow-lion stalking buried treasures, a singer learning and singing new songs, simultaneously.
Water is the king and when your heart runs like water, poetry becomes an uncheckable force – everywhere you hear it… everywhere you hear it. It follows you, it enters you, it captures you until you have mastered yourself in it, then it sets you free to roam again. Yes, this is my jungle.
I have in me a so soft spot for that glowing star, yonder flame that has decided to call me Home. Yes, Song, let it ring, and with my life I will follow, poet and musician and man. There was a beginning but, I vow, there shall be no end to eternal tenderness inside you and me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ALL THE THINGS THAT THE WORDS DO NOT SAY
I wish I were a painter, to draw the pictures and paint the concepts that words cannot hold – my words. I believe there are greater poets now and ever, better writers, greater wordists, because I’ve tried and tried but still I’ve not succeeded in telling you what I know. I cannot form it in words, I cannot form it in thoughts, I just know it and understand that it is the world of things which the words have never said.
You cannot tell a woman that you love her. The moment you say it, it is gone. You can tell a man the truth, but you cannot tell him what the truth is – only he must find it out for himself one day. You cannot describe beauty in words. Even the beauty of a beautiful poem cannot be put into poetry again. You did it without thinking – and the moment you started thinking, you did not see it again.
Think a little – little thoughts…
A picture is still worth a thousand and one words. A woman wounded me mortally, yet try as I did, I could not explain in words what she did, and yet I know it Clearly.
You can never change anybody but yourself, because you are the one person to whom you can speak without words, always. And once there is truth, then there is nothing more to say. You can only say the truth, my brother, but you cannot make anybody understand. But, take heart… silence teaches the last lesson finally finally finally finally.
All the things that the words do not say, silence says always.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
AT NIGHT…
Truth undresses
Conscience pricks
Contemplation caresses
What conversation can’t fix.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
HEARTBREAK AND PROMISES, TOGETHERNESS, FAREWELLS AND SILENCE
To make a promise to love another person, forever, and then to break this promise and say, Goodbye baby… awakens within the hearts of everybody who hears of it a memory of their own broken and unspoken promises.
Noise everywhere. Noise in my head. Noise even in the centre of silence. Lovers are what sages once were, and vice versa. Heartbreak and promises, togetherness, farewells and silence are all trying to resolve themselves within our hearts.
I should never have told you that I loved you, but how could I but not tell the truth? Evermore I understand the importance of silence. Our hearts are broken in silence: a small token to pay for the new powers which soon and steadily awaken in silence within us.
One who can bear the pain of heartbreak; one who can say goodbye and yet always be there; one who can preserve promises in silence unbroken; will read these lines with a knowing smile.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
WRITERS AND LOVERS
I’ve never dated a writer
I wonder what it’s like
To both be awake, thinking
And writing in the night.
Will we share each other’s thoughts
Or keep our thoughts to ourselves?
Will we rejoice together
Or envy each other’s success?
Who will draw from whom
When both are needy?
Who will be the calming pole
When the writer gets crazy?
Who will write the greater poem
Into the book of life?
Greater than words on paper
And conquer inner strife.
Read my palm, it’s full of lines
Do not read between the lines
Between the lines are just packs of lies
Cleverly waiting to bait a writer’s eyes.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
NEVER STOP SEEKING THE GRAIL
Works that stay
And show the way
To travelling spirits
On the right road
Long after I myself have passed
This way.
Not works of vanity
Nor dance of insanity
But honesty to my spirit
Who drank whilst thirsty
And knows the source of eternal water
The Grail’s Fountain.
Some seek politics
Some seek academics
Some believe in race issues
Some ideology or religion
And many will seek only pleasure
And self.
But through history
An inner mystery
Occupies all human spirits
It doesn’t die or fade –
The urge to know the true meaning of
The chalice, the stone, the mystery, the fountain,
The beginning, the origin, the genesis, the portal, the Grail.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 