ALL WE SEE IS THE OUTSIDE

They say I was born rich
So nobody nobody nobody
Wipes my tears when I weep
Not my rich father
Nor my poor mother
Not my sister, not my brother
Not my society or any other
Only my own hands
Only my own hands
Gonna wipe my own tears
I’ve learnt my lesson
Gonna be my own person
Lordy, I’m gonna be my own person

They say I was born gifted
So nobody nobody nobody
Feeds me when I’m down and hungry
Not my father who doesn’t understand me
Nor my mother who overrates me
Not my sister, not my brother though they love me
But they’ll never never know me

If you want to know humanity
Look down when you’re up
And look up when you’re down
And pray
To never get caught in the middle
The middle pays for the poor’s pains
And the rich’s gains
And goes to bed empty-handed on an empty stomach
Hungry for work that really pays the needed holidays
I’ve learnt my lesson
Lordy, I’m gonna be my own person.

They say I was born poor
So I have no right to share in the fruits of others’ labour
I should use my own gifts
And I should be grateful for every little favor
Favour is the taste of their flavour
But a drowning man’s got no choice
Truth and irony – they are my voice
That’s why nobody understands us.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

DISTANCE

I have a longing for intimacy
Not satisfied by sex
A craving for voyeurism
Not quenched by porn
A yearning for universal entanglement
Not gratified by orgies
And a need for intense borderlessness
Not staked by perversity
What is it?

I have an itch for mystification
Not calmed by lying
A desire for friction
Not stilled by confrontation
A propensity for destruction
Not quelled by murder
And a burning for escape
Not silenced by suicide
What is it?

It’s like I am separated from myself
And watch myself through a window
And everything that I do
Is actually being done by my shadow
While I wait for something real
Really really real.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SOLIDARITY IN VICISSITUDE

What’s the point? A good start,
A bad fall. Bright sunshine, broken
By patches of night –
Hunger, loneliness, all that you have
Is your soul and the spirit
In it –
You.

It’s not the door cringing,
It’s the stomach wringing…
It’s not a statue,
It’s a lonely person…
Be good to me, brother man.
Sister woman.

Be good to me.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

EXERTION IS SELF-PRESERVATION

Sometimes you have to be humble
And accept help when you’re down
But sometimes you have to be proud
And reject help, and help yourself

The first will save you in an emergency
And steady you for one day
The second will prepare you for eternity
And save you from extinction

Adversity is the friend of development
Challenge is the wake up call of genius
Obstacles are the partner of survival
Life’s true wish is to awaken us

Our time in this world will end one day
Father Sun and Mother Earth
Were just a temporary bridge God built
To teach us how to walk.

Endless Aid is a silent Killer
It is worse than AIDS and worse than Ebola
If you want God’s help along the way
First you have to be walking upon the way

The way of search and of exertion
For exertion alone brings self-preservation
Not help, not aid, not running away
Because you can’t run away from yourself.

Humility and pride are not mutually exclusive
This pride is not the synonym of vanity
For when you become too proud to take it
You humble yourself and learn how to make it.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

GOOGLE GLASSES

We all become google’s spy
Each of us a pupil of its all-seeing eye
Using us to watch us
In deepest privacy it will touch us
We no longer need to surf
To deliver data to big brother
Just look cool in their camera glasses
And you become their agent undercover
Sorry 007 it’s no longer for your eyes only
Everybody’s licensed to spy on society
On Google-majesty’s secret service.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

NEW THINGS

Environmental and spatial beauty start with Art and Imagination. When you imagine it, draw it, design it and then outwardly build it after that image – then you suddenly have outwardly what you crave and imagine inwardly.

As simple as this may sound, this is the key to quantum leaps and to infinite development. This is the assurance that the boundaries of Genius will always be crossed and thus extended intermittently as long as we continue to march through Time. Space is flexible, and bendable to Imagination and Inspiration.

New Nations will always arise from time to time; and groups of people will receive new insights into outworkings of the fundamental thought, and find a new characteristic of Matter and of engineering space – that is, they will find an old fact but it will seem new to them because it will supercede the knowledge available to them in their era.

The abstract is the Petri dish of the concrete, imagination is the fertile breeding ground of reality. To kill a people, kill their imagination and make them into a nation of copycats. Praise them when they copy others, and give them prizes, awards and honors when they copy others very well. But when they attempt to be innovative, to produce new thoughts, to toy with new ideas, to experiment with new possibilities, then ridicule them.

When they choose not only to copy or be inspired by that which is trending, but to create that which is different and not (yet) popular, when they decide not to follow follow, but to open new paths, then ostracize them, mock them, sideline them, punish them and hurt their ego and do not finance them. At the very least, ignore them. Soon they will abandon the path of difficult authentic growth and blend into the game of joining the train and going anywhere the train is going, but never going their own way or birthing new things.

But if you want to uplift a people, then liberate their spirit. Because human was not made for the sabbath, but the sabbath was made for human. If time waits for no-one, then no-one should wait for time either. It is not imagination that should adjust itself to reality, but reality should bend to imagination in order to keep on elevating itself. Matter, at its highest, can still only be the cloak of spirit. As the spirit wills it, so the universe will execute it reciprocally upon the spirit. Unfortunately, even when the spirit is willing, still the flesh – the brain, the earthling in flesh and blood – is weak.

That’s why we fight wars, and seek to oppress, dominate and ostracize each other. That is the origin of racism, bigotry and extremism. This is the cause of the stagnation of human civilization despite all illusions of technological flight. Weakness. It has its origin not in strength, but in weakness; inner weakness. The inability to really imagine and intuitively perceive Paradise and then to build it on Earth.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

AUSSERHALB

Ich habe schon drei gelesen,
Drei geöffnet, bin schon drei gewesen –
Drei Bücher, drei Schatztücher,
Drei Besucher –
Und habe getrieben, immer, Wucher
Denn alles mir Abverlangte
Erbeutete ich stets mehrfach zurück
Wenn ich beiße, nehme ich ein gutes Stück
Dessen, nach dem ich verlangte
Denn ich liebe über alles die Liebe
Und ich suche vor allem die Sehnsucht
Und ich fürchte keineswegs die Herzdiebe
Es versetzt mich nichts in die Flucht –
Alles kann ich verlieren
Ich werde es mehrfach zurück gewinnen.
Doch ich würde sofort erfrieren
Gäbe es Dich nicht mehr in mir hier drinnen.

Jeden Tag brauch ich Dich
Jeden Augenblick, denn Du bist anders –
Teil von mir, unentbehrlich,
Dich gibt es nirgend wo anders.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

DILEMMA

Egal wo man anfängt
Egal wie
Egal wo man seine Träume aufhängt
Schmerzen sie
Denn alles Unerfüllte jagt uns für immer,
Unausweichbar, ein geistiges Dilemma.

Politik und Wirtschaft
Arbeit und Wissenschaft
Liebe und Freundschaft
Schwäche und Feindseligkeit –
Wir suchen und suchen, aber nach was?
Der Gral ruft ewig ohne Unterlaß
Selbst die Kunst stillt es nimmer
Stets stört es uns, das geistige Dilemma.

Träger einer Dauersehnsucht
Nachts brennt sie heller –
Nur nachts kann Cinderella
Das finden, was sie sucht –
Ohne Sträuben, gib Dich hin
Fließe mit, egal wohin
Das ist Deines Lebens Sinn
Denn Du steckst schon drin.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

FORTIFYING THE BASE

We might not inspire the heart
Behind every new pair of curious eyes
To new thoughts or new resolutions
But we can reinforce ourselves
In that which we already know and do
And that is as good a reason
As any other
To write into the book of life.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

DES LEBENS GEDICHT

Alles, aber auch nur alles
Alles, was Du Dir nur vorstellen kannst –
Alles, aber wirklich alles
Alles, was Du weißt und denkst und ahnst
Und denkst, daß Du kannst,
Unscheinbares und Monumentales
Alles, was Dir je einfallen könnte,
In tausend Jahren noch einfallen wird,
Auf Deinen Wissensberg sich noch thrönte,
Mit neuen Erkenntnissen Dich krönte,
Alles, was Dir Weisheit beschert
Und Dich Neues immer wieder aufs Neue belehrt,
Alles, was Du Dir gönntest und mehr
Alles, was Du einst hattest und findest aber nimmermehr
Jede Grenze, jeder Gipfel, jeder Endpunkt
Jeder Traum, der schimmert und prunkt
Und näher rückt, ewig näher und näher,
Jede ewige Idee, die noch funkt,
Alles Streben und alles Erreichen
Und alles Ankommen und weiter hoffen –
Entrungenes aller ent-inkarnierten Leichen
Und deren Zeiten, einst; alle Möglichkeiten noch offen,
Alles kann und wird übertroffen.

Der Du heute bist
Wirst Du nimmer wieder werden
Auf dieser reisenden Erden –
Kurz ist die große Frist
Denn es gibt immer Höheres im Lebensgetriebe
Übertroffen wird alles, nur eines nicht
Und das ist die einfache wahre Liebe,
Des Lebens ewiges Gedicht.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.