Anyị bịara ụwa
Maka gịnị?
Ọ nwe onye chụbara anyị ụwa?
Ọ nwe ihe chụpụ anyị n’Eligwe?
Otu ụbọchị, anyị bia…
Otu ụbọchị, anyị ga-ala…
Ma tupuu anyị a laa,
Ụwa ga e kuziri anyị ihe Chineke
Kenyere n’ime ya bụ ụwa
O nwere ihe anyị chọtara bịa ebe a
Onye nwụọ tupuu ọ chọta nke ya,
O ruo echi, ọ bịakwa ụwa ọzọ…
Ọ chọta nke ya, ọ la ma ulọ –
Maka ụwa bụ ụlọ akwukwọ…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
What would the sky give
To uncage the clouds and set the rain free?
Everything she has; and yet
What’s the use?
You can set old secrets free
New ones will pile up inside again
For only what is hidden can set us free.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
This Poem was inspired by the Article: CONFESSIONS.
Happiness was close
Always close
A thought away
A recognition away
But that was always too far
For a young mind blinded
By too many choices
Too many voices.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Weit weit
Wie Ort des Urknalls
Kante des Geschehens
Leben
Weit weit dehnt sich
Weiter mein Herz aus
Jedes Herz, das ich einst rührte
Ist noch unterwegs nach Haus
Jeder Freund, der Abschied nahm
Spür ich noch hier Zuhaus
Wie weit noch, dein Ufer?
Bald gehen mir die Kräfte aus.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Ada lifted her bag off the floor and lay it horizontally across her thighs, uncaged by her micro mini skirt. She extracted Tony’s poems now from the bag, which action had been earlier interrupted by the conductor, the look in whose eyes she was trying to push out of her mind.
They were six long sheets, on each one poem. If only he had a job or something, a steady, paying job, she would appreciate his poetry even more. She sighed. No, that wasn’t true. She appreciated and loved him and his anyway.
Her eyes, with part-reluctance, part-eagerness, settled on the first sheet of paper. She read the title and reflected on it… Dance Again. Then she was drawn again into the fluidity of Tony’s poetic philosophy. It had been a long time since she last read any of his poems, and deliberately so… but now she began to peruse:…
People, spoil
Very slowly change
For worse
Soil becomes hard,
Abandon tenderness
Childlike humility
Lose the ability to change
Remain
Where we stopped
Slide into oblivion, proudly
Anxiously
You and I, know it, lost it
Search again
Youth of today
Take it, purely purely
Dive not into pools of rot
Spoil not the young
Soil not the truth
When did we become rigid
Forget how to dance dance
Inner music?
Our world has played a nasty trick on us
Tenderly, self, dance again
That inner dance
Before rigidity
Forever stills us.
Ada smiled and sighed and saw again her brother’s heart and mind. Who he was. This was Tony. Forever still you. Suddenly it seemed to her as if she had just reunited with him after a long, much too long, separation. How could it have happened? When has they parted?
Then she lowered her eyes again, and read further, to know him all over again, her brother – Young.
Heaven-born come the young
Happy, simple, free, humble, strong
Hearts full of wisdom
Naïve, ready to establish some perfect kingdom
We were young
Never faltering, ever wandering with dream
With song
If the young shall rise anew
Then learn again to yearn, in deeds true.
She did not notice the woman sitting behind her, watching her intensely the whole time. Some people, they say, feel stares on the backs of the head. Ada was one such person, but not today. The poems had taken her away.
Behind her sat this woman, however, looking at her with a shocked question in her eyes, willing her to turn around. And when she didn’t, the strange woman put her face briefly in her hands and wondered what to do. Ada was the last person she expected to see on this bus. She knew Ada, but Ada did not know her. She took long deep breaths to steady herself, and wondered what to do…
Continued in Part Four.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
If you’re tired of These snippets, just buy the book on any Amazon store.
Twice IS Not Enough
Groupies gave you pleasure, but
Did not make you happy –
Only lonesomeness explained why
Too many moons kill the night
Too many moons spoil the dark
Pluck your moons one by one
From the autumn of imagination
One by one, let them rise
One by one, let them pass
In the absence of one
I had them all, but in truth
I walked with none
Talked with none, loved none
And the night was dark as day
And the night called a new moon
And night after night she grew
More and more beautiful as she
Slowly came, slowly stayed, slowly passed…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Alles war nutzlos gegen ihre hohen Wände
Keine Ideologie war tief genug, um
Ihre Kälte zu untergraben –
Ich sag’s Euch, keine Ideologie.
Keine Philosophie,
Weder der Natur noch der Wissenschaft,
Überzeugte sie. Stark wie Amazonia.
Für die Brechstange war sie zu zerbrechlich; unempfänglich.
Und dann schrieb mein Herz ihr ein Gedicht
Und, siehe: sie schmolz, und weinte bitterlich.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Two streams there are
Those who fall into the first
Find the waterfall of horizon.
Those who fall into the second
Forever fight against the current
That keeps them down, drowning…
And forever they’ll be unionists
Protesting against the upper classes
Who mock them from above.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
And we shall sing as though
There be no morning,
Hear the night sway softly along, my dear
My heart is trying to say something
But I’ve forgotten the language
Of my ancestors…
But when we sing, I remember
A time before Christmas and December
When red earth and green hill and blue sky
Were home enough for us.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Du bist, was du bist
Egal, wo du bist
Klarheit ist die allerletzte Frucht
Der Werdereise durch Sehnsucht
Was ist dein Wort morgen wert?
Was war deine Vergangenheit wert?
Wofür du gestern gelitten treu
Dafür steh heute, tapfer, unscheu
Darauf warte, daß es fruchte
Deine Überzeugung neu befruchte
Du zu sein, wenn du nichts bist
Ist frei zu sein, wenn du alles bist.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 