WHERE SHE IS, HOME IS

Where she is is home,
Hope, I shall no longer roam
Any further, she’s my world,
My home, around me curled,
Unfurled, wanting me bad,
I, this never-ending fairy-lad.
Home, where she is is
Home, hope, land of bliss, is
Where I stay, I roam no more,
I return home and want no more.

– che chidi chukwumerije

KERN

Fern
Ist mein Kern

Fern
Wie ein Stern

Gern
Bleibt mein Kern

Fern
Wie ein Stern.

– che chidi chukwumerije.

SOMETHING’S MISSING

I don’t know if you’ve heard
There is a land where girls were stolen
Kidnapped it’s called in sociopolitical speak

That land happens to be my country
Those girls another set of casualties
In a war of religion and education

Let’s just call it a war on humanity
The candles are going out
From one country to the next

Some swear the second world war is not yet over
Others boast the cold war is far from done
Meanwhile an old war has long begun

Some call this the third world war
The last one apparently Nostradamus encrypted
For sure it is a religious war on faith

Everyday it opens up a new field of battle
Now it has picked on my country too
And made her the new local theater of a global scourge

But how do you win a religious war?
By killing, or by forgiving?
By retaliating or by reconciling?

It is a philoshical puzzle
A paradox of semantics
In which real people die everyday.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

YOU WILL NOT SEE THE SUN YET

After the Still of the Night, if you are listening, you will notice that the birds have begun to twitter, the dogs have started to bark, the cocks to crow. Looking out the window, you will notice that the sky is a tinge less dark and the stars and moon, though clearly visible still, strangely are fast fading too. You will not see the sun yet, but a stranger within you will tell you that the sun is stirring somewhere over an eastern horizon, and the world is waiting with a heart full of wonder, holding its breath, and every yawn is an awakening not a retiring. A quiet energy begins to brew, like a yearning.

Opening your heart, you will perceive that the heavenly song, echoing still on within you, retreating, has faded quietly quietly away again. And, your open heart still open, you will perceive that the harsher vibrations of an embattled intellectual species, human by name, are surging out once more – through windows, doors, walls and hearts and reawakening chaotic minds, through opening unseeing eyes and resettling restless souls, bodies crashing densely out of bed, self-locked plans and plots in mind, they prepare to explode upon the planet, yes, ready and about to punish a guiltless world again with another day of desperate madness starting now just when nature and the natural world would so deeply like to smile the smile of dawn.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE HIDDEN FEATHER

The hidden feather
There and not there
Fluttering, silent, soft
Bearing a great thing aloft.

– che chidi chukwumerije.

SAFETY

What fear is it that colonises us as we advance and infects us with the thirst for safety? Why, how does it conquer us? Why do we yield to the fear of the unknown? Were we always seeking the valley and never the mountain-peak? Was this always our secret goal? Or did we fall somewhere, and hide thereafter behind a smile and a serious frown or the line in-between, shutting our eyes carefully so that the world would not be bothered much by the sight of the decaying of our most cherished dream?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

NEUE LIEBE

Erfahrung kommt
Will meinen Sinn für Abenteuer
Meine Lust nach Neuem
Meine Bereitwilligkeit, Rufen zu folgen
Verdrängen
Mir weg nehmen

Erfahrung hat gezeigt
Niemandem ist zu trauen
Keinem Wort, keinem Versprechen
Du musst dein Herz schützen
Unbedingt

Ich zweifle in der Nacht
Selbstgespräche…
Erfahrung sagt, das Menschenherz
Wird wieder lieben
Egal, was Erfahrung sagt
Denn dazu ist es geschaffen

So grau, diese Maitage
Grüner November, träume ich?
An Schönheit kann alles Sichtbare
Übertroffen sein, träume ich

Das Fremde fühlt sich an wie zu Hause
Eine lange Reise war eine kurze Pause
Es geht wieder nach Hause
Auch da draußen

Denn es ist mir ein Blick begegnet
Wild und angespannt atmet ein Pferd
Aufgeblasener Nase
Blickt nach Links nach Rechts
Weiß nicht wie es
Reagieren soll…
Denn plötzlich ist ihm bewusst geworden,
Ich bin gefangen.

 – Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LIVE, PAIN, LOVE

It’s just life
No pause
Inescapable laws

No brakes
No breaks
No breaking out – you’re done in

Few gives, few takes
The dark is near
It is in there

It’s always there
It’s just life
You pay the price – that’s your role

There is a myth, a legend
A hurt-filled, painful, word
They call it love

There are no guarantees
But they say
It will set you free – nothing more

It won’t bring you wealth
It won’t bring you power
It’s just life

Keep it warm
Keep it safe
Keep it alive – love – it’ll keep you alive.

– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.

A LITTLE WIND

To encompass a mighty tale
Within the letters of a little poem
Little sentence, little phrase
One little word

To start with the clue and end with the question
To give the world in every act
To live a life never lived before
By you.

– che chidi chukwumerije.

KÖNNEN NUR POLITIKER DIE WELT VERÄNDERN?

Da ich selten marschiere
Und mit marschiere
Da ich selten koaliere
Frage ich mich…

Da ich alles sehe und alles höre
Doch wenn ich den Mund aufmache
Über ganz andere Dinge rede, als die heißen Themen
Frage ich mich…

Von welchem Planeten komme ich?
Auf welchem Stern lebe ich?
Was hat mich anders programmiert?
Denn oft verstehe ich nicht

Wieso alle in eine bestimmte Richtung laufen
Während hier doch vor meinen Füßen
Ein andrer Pfad mich dorthin führt
Wo die neue Welt geboren wird.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.