While I was searching
For the right words to say to you
You smilingly healed my hurting
With the wordless things you do.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
words
PROMISES WITHOUT WORDS
Some promises are made without words. But they are there. They are transmitted from heart to heart, and the heart understands what has been given, received, taken, reciprocated and shared.
Such promises are easy to break and deny, but hard to bear or forget or ever make good again. Because what was not spoken with words or broken with words cannot be repaired with words.
The deepest promises are silent and are the litmus test of the truthfulness of our character and the trustworthiness of our personalities and the purity of our hearts.
And then when the words then follow, they seal in stone what has already permeated the air and the heart.
Be mindful of the promises you make, whether spoken or unspoken, be honest to yourself and fulfil – or break honestly – what you have promised within yourself.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
WHAT WORDS CAN DO
I’ve learnt the hard way What words can do When I write or say Them to you. When I think you will read between the lines You read the lines, And when I think you will read the lines You read between the lines. Sometimes I think you will understand That I don’t really mean what I’m saying, But the words enter you and start to expand And exact a price I will long be paying. Because words carry life And words carry meaning, A word that cuts and kills like a knife May not be corrected by a word of healing. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
WORDS WORTH LITTLE
What are words worth On this lonely earth? Actions seem more honest But they also lie the best. You don’t know what to believe - Even silence too can deceive. Only what you intuitively perceive Will in the end be your reprieve. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
PEOPLE SAY ALL SORTS
When people insist I love you more Put them to the test They won’t love you anymore When people claim I don’t love you anymore Treat them the same They’ll love you once more Don’t base everything On just what people say People will say anything Just to get through another day Everybody wants happiness But not everyone really knows How to get that happiness - We’re all searching and it shows. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
THE THINGS YOU SAID
You cannot grow back a flower that’s dead You cannot stick back leaves already shed My mind has heard, my heart has bled You cannot take back the things you said. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
TIRED OF WORDS
A moment of poems passes away
And the nostalgia doth arise
Always the same and always, I pray
That it again’ll tomorrow materialise
Cross my path, call of heaven
Breath of heaven, touch of heaven
Cross my path again, from heaven
Whisper someone, touch me, whisper, free me
Break me loose from the cycle of words
I want the Other Poem.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
JOKER
Jokes are the barrier
People let down between themselves
A spoken word can wash away years of building
Leave in its wake a ruptured earth
Worse than as if life never happened.
Watch that joke, it’s no joke
The damage will outlive the laughter
Long long after
The careless word you spoke.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
WRITING IS THE HAPPINESS OF SORROW
Writing is the happiness
Of sorrow
The immortal spirit
Of mortality
The voice that needs
No mouth
The painting whose canvas is
The reader’s mind.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
———-
In 2013 I gave myself the luxury of publishing two books of poems on my birthday – today 6th April.
One is titled “WRITING IS THE HAPPINESS OF SORROW“, the idea for which came with the poem above which I wrote some time ago.
The other is “THE BEAUTIFUL ONES HAVE BEEN BORN” which is specific to my continent Africa.
In 2015 I reprinted them.
THOSE THOUGHTS DON’T DISAPPEAR
Those thoughts don’t disappear
They keep living somewhere
In you… in me… in someone far away
From here…
Those thoughts don’t disappear
They keep working somewhere
In your world… in my world… or in a far away world
You don’t see and you don’t hear…
Oh, those quiet thoughts
That you’re thinking
Somebody’s picking
Round and round it goes, nothing’s new
And nothing’s hidden and nothing’s lost
Reap the sower must
Those thoughts, they don’t just disappear
They keep on growing somewhere
And one day… when you least expect it…
Oh oh oh, they’re back again in your life
Oh oh oh, they’re back again with their maker.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 