Du in der Leere
Du in dem fremden Land
Du in dem Garten, wo keiner sonst ist
Bist du sicher?
Ganz sicher?
Du ohne Bruder
Du ohne Schwester
Du ohne Familie, ohne Freund, ohne zweiten
Du ohne Mitreisenden
Bist du sicher?
Ganz sicher?
Du für dich allein
Du bei dir allein
Sei doch zuerst dessen ganz klar
Was du machst und machen willst
Bevor du weiter wanderst
Bevor du weiter wanderst
Bevor du weiter wanderst
Dorthin.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Quietness nay silence
Like a virginal victim of violence
Was broken by a passing train in the night
Lonely and out of sight.
I won’t go near the window
Why reopen sorrow?
Let it pass by like a train in the distance
Heralding a second chance.
Night breathes, asleep
Silence sinks into ethereal deep
None shall stir until the dawn doth break
Only I – why am I still awake?
If I were clairvoyant, I would swear
There is somebody with me here
In that quiet hour when night is day
Spirits come out to play.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Man sagt
Es stolpert im Wald ein Geist herum
Freund der Tiere, Sohn der Natur
Ein Typ mit wilden Haaren und scheuen Augen
Und einer längst vergessenen Geschichte.
Nur eine
Hat noch nicht vergessen
Politik und Entwicklung haben ihr die Vergangenheit
Nicht weg radiert
Je ferner in die Zukunft die Welt rast
Desto tiefer sinken ihre Wurzeln in das Vergangene hinein.
Es sind kleine Dinge
Die sich an ihn erinnern lassen
Kleine Laute in der Natur, ohne Körper und Ziel
Schatten im Wald, flüchtige Bewegungen.
Sie guckt hinein, sieht nichts, nur Dunkel
Spürt jedoch seine Augen, wild und scheu
Und voller Angst…
Mütter, die ihre Söhne verloren haben
Schwestern, die ihre Brüder verloren haben
Töchter, die ihre Väter verloren haben
Frauen, die ihre Männer verloren haben
Mädchen, die ihre Geliebten verloren haben
Verloren aber nie vergessen.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
You become yourself
When you stop caring
What others think
You become strong
When you stop caring
What others think
You become calm
When you stop caring
What others think
You become kind
You become clear
You become, simply, you.
It’s that simple
Brave one,
It’s that simple.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
E mechaa,
Mgbe anyasị ruru,
Anyị a gụọ egwu ahụ ọzọ –
Ọ egwu Chineke
Tinyere n’ime ụwa,
Egwu obi, egwu obi,
Egwu mkpụrụ-obi… –
Unu a jụna m
Ihe mere e ji m a gụpụta ihe dị m n’obi…
Unu a jụna m
Ihe mere e ji m a sụ nani asụsụ nke m…
Igbo bu otu, anyị ma,
Ma onye ọbụla nwe asụsụ bụ sọ nke ya,
Maka ọnye ọbụla dị iche –
Ị jụna m ihe mere e ji m a sụ asụsụ nke m –
Ma, ị chọọ,
Ị bịa mgbe anyasị ruru,
Mgbe ọnwa na-achị n’eligwe,
Mgbe ukuku na-ahwụ nwayọ kwa,
Ị bịa,
Ka anyị wee gụa egwu ahụ anyị nile ma,
Egwu ahụ Chineke tinyere m’ime ụwa,
Egwu ahụ Chineke tinyere anyị nịle n’ime obi,
Egwu eziokwu na ịhụnanya,
Egwu idinotu.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
———————————————————
Che Chidi Chukwumerije – Mmiri a zoro nwayọ nwayọ (english / deutsch)
———————————————————-
illustrated by Okam Abraxxzas
Seven seals locked Pandora’s box
But some clever mind surely
Was on hand to break me free
Now he’s running from me
I want you, baby. It’s redemption time
Outrun dawn? It’s time has come
Strip down and face the reggae trumpet
Natty dread rise again, too much hypocrisy
Sweet is the weight that falls off your shoulders
When you stop fearing to speak your mind.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
… continued from Part Eleven.
On his way home, Tony was very silent.
Outside the gate of his house, he felt the night-wind softly call, and he took out a sheet of paper from his back-pocket, and a pen, leaned against the wall and, whilst a bird sang somewhere near and somewhere far, like an ancient dream coming again, coming home, he wrote: On this we stand.
Did you love me, did you not?
My, what a heart…
Did it break, broke it not?
I do not know –
Is it ending, is it beginning?
Hard to tell…
‘Tis forever my love
Forever we are this –
This? What is this?
It is this:
Please be true to your heart forever.
*
Ada saw him from upstairs, leaning against the wall just at the edge of the gate, writing … in the dark. How could he see what he was writing?
And he was always writing.
She heard a sparrow singing on a branch in front of the veranda. It was a lovely eternal song.
“Did you see her?” she asked him when he entered. She did not see any piece of paper in his hands. She could still hear the birdsong somewhere near and somewhere far and somewhere deep within her soul, a dream on the long walk home.
“Who?”
“Ngozi.”
Tony searched for an evasive answer, then gave up. How did she know?
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Forget it.”
“She’s travelling in six days’ time.”
“Where to?”
“Germany. University. Work. I don’t know. She wasn’t clear.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, double-ouch.”
Later she said:
“The poems you gave me yesterday. They were nice.”
“Hm.”
“Ngozi read some too, on the bus.”
“Hm.”
“There’s food in the kitchen.”
“Thanks, I’m starved.”
“She’s a nice person; even almost special, I somehow think.”
Tony was silent a while. Then he shook his head and said:
“It’s complicated.” – and walked into the kitchen, his mind on Ngozi.
… ***
… to find out how this delicate and unfinished love story between Tony and Ngozi played itself out, buy and read the full novella on
amazon.com (e-book / paperback)
amazon.co.uk (e-book / paperback)
amazon.de (e-book / paperback)
amazon.in (ebook / paperback)
amazon.ca (ebook / paperback)
amazon.com.au (ebook / paperback)
or any other amazon online stores worldwide.
Available from December 2013.
TWICE IS NOT ENOUGH.
– AKA TERAKA.
Tagging.
Jetzt wurde auch ich getagged, und zwar von Sinn.Wort.Spiel
Ich soll die nachfolgenden Fragen beantworten und anschließend mir welche für andere Blogger ausdenken.
OK, here goes.
1. bei welchem wort bekommst du eine gänsehaut?
= Gänsehaut.
2. bei welchem gedicht fühlst du dich in deine kindheit zurückversetzt?
= „The Eagle“ – von Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
3. wie viel ist 33 geteilt durch 3?
= 11.
4. welche/r schauspieler/in würde dich in einem film über dein leben darstellen?
= So gut kenne ich mich nicht, um zu wissen, welcher Schauspieler am Besten die Rolle spielen würde.
5. links oder rechts?
= Schreiben mit rechts, malen mit links.
= Herz links, Kopf rechts.
6. was war das erste wort, das du als kind sagen konntest?
= Daddy.
7. wie riecht die farbe lila?
= Schöne Frage. Könnte der erste Satz eines Gedichts sein.
Wie riecht die Farbe lila?
Wie klingt softe Vanilla?
… usw.
PS – sie riecht nach kurz vor einem dunklen Gewitter.
8. warum fühlt sich leder anders an als plastik?
= Weil ich Haut habe.
9. wie alt bist du?
= 39
10. warum?
= Warum nicht?
🙂
—–
Und diese wären dann meine 10 Fragen:
1. Was wäre für Dich die höchste Tugend?
2. Welches Wort reimt sich am treffendsten auf Dich?
3. Was würde das Kind, das Du einst warst, von dem Erwachsenen, der Du geworden bist, halten?
4. Welche Sportart fasziniert Dich am meisten?
5. Warum?
6. Welches Lied würde Dich heute am weichsten stimmen?
7. Welche Empfindung wird von der Farbe blau in dir geweckt?
8. Wird die Menschheit sich und die Erde zerstören?
9. Beginnt oder endet das Leben mit 40?
10. Was ist Dein Lieblingskinderbuch?
an die folgenden Blogger – mit der Hoffnung, Ihr wurdet nicht bereits (geschweige denn mehrmals) getagged und es könnte Euch Spaß machen, diese Fragen zu beantworten 🙂 :
Wolfgang Schnier
Form 7
Diafo
Freiraum
Leben und schreiben in nicht (meiner) Muttersprache
Puzzleblume
Benn Wederwill
Hildegard Lewandowsky
Skryptoria
Gescheuchten Igel
Und hier sind die Regeln:
– Beantworte die 10 Fragen, die der Tagger dir gestellt hat
– Denke dir selbst zehn Fragen aus, die du den Bloggern, die du taggen möchtest, stellst
– Such dir zehn Blogs aus, (die unter 200 Follower haben) und tagge sie
– Erzähle es den glücklichen Bloggern (wichtig, sonst gerät das Ganze etwas ins Stocken).
– Zurücktaggen ist nicht erlaubt.
Viel Spaß!
… continued from Part Ten.
Somewhere else, Ngozi dressed up and went to work. Her mind was on Tony, wondering if he would call, hoping he would call, knowing, from memory and a deep understanding of him, that he might not, and why. And yet, wishing that he would surprise her all the same.
Tony did not call. – He came.
All of a sudden. She looked up and there he was, standing in front of her in her office in Anthony Village, a respectable, quietly opulent area of Lagos Mainland.
A little distance behind him, leafing in through the newly and quietly opened door, was the light of day, huskily harmattan. A car drove past further in the background, then another, as they smiled at one another. Her smile was open, his shy. She was amused, he was unsure. He took a step forward and shut the door.
Finally, she stood up. They looked at one another, unsure of what to do. Then she noticed how thin he was. A sharp, audible intake of breath, a full-throated hiss, was her first reaction. Then she came to him and touched his arm.
“Tony, you’ve lost weight.”
What is the mystery of love?
“I’ve missed you,” Tony said, speaking, like he so often did, without pausing to think, without ever even having once previously felt it. Since the resolution, years ago. Yet when he saw her, he remembered her again. And missed her. And had her. And was hers.
He let out his breath, slowly, deeply, and said it again:
“Wooow… I’ve missed you like what!”
“Like what?” she asked, smiling like a tease, remembering and playing along in the word-game.
“Yeah, like what.”
And they laughed, smiled, but did not embrace.
The weight of the years, somehow, lay yet upon them and between them. Memories of pain slowly arose. Tony saw it steal over her eyes like grey clouds across an open sky. He had hurt her. Deeply.
She had had her faults, some of them major pain-bringers. But in the end, it was he who had delivered the fatal blow. And she had not forgotten. It was in her eyes.
But had she forgiven?
“How did you know this place?” Ngozi asked, taking her hand off his arm and inching away almost imperceptibly and, thus, most perceptibly.
“Tony-magic,” he smiled, twirling his fingers like a trickster.
They laughed again, partly to soften a heavy moment. Somewhere at the back of both their minds was the immediate understanding that this moment and how they handled it, and how it resolved itself, with or without their participation, would determine their future. Together or apart. Or what.
The undefined what.
Maybe because Yuletide had softened everybody. Maybe because of both their yesterdays. Maybe because of the manner and mood of this re-meeting. Maybe because they had never stopped caring. But, somehow, it was as though they had never parted. This was the moment in which they would meet or part.
Characteristic of Ngozi she wanted it settled at once. And it seemed to her as though she had been waiting and preparing for it all these years.
But characteristic of Tony he wanted to post-pone it again, like he did the last time. Imperceptibly. Like he was a master at doing.
Tony smiled and looked round her office. It had the touch of beauty floating upon it, simple as it was, but he had the feeling that something was missing, without being able to place his finger on it.
There was an uncurtained window behind her seat, and, a toned contrast to the fluorescent be-lit room, again wafted in the light of day upon the tastefully designed, sturdy wooden office table, panelled-over with leather, colonised by but a tiny telephone on one side and nothing else. Tony noted that she still had that habit of being neat almost unto sparseness.
Her office was opened into by the door through which he’d just entered, behind which was a spacious business-centre.
He looked round her office again. There was a painting … he ignored it.
She waited for his eyes to quit roaming, then trapped them again. For a second she thought she’d detected panic in there, but she couldn’t be sure. His eyes, light brown and expressive, were amused and appraising as they settled on her one more time.
The moment, as though it had a will of its own, became now tender.
They embraced.
… continued in Part 12.
– AKA TERAKA.
If you want to skip the excerpts and read the full story of this delicate, subtle love story, the novella is availaable on
amazon.com (e-book / paperback)
amazon.co.uk (e-book / paperback)
amazon.de (e-book / paperback)
amazon.in (ebook / paperback)
amazon.ca (ebook / paperback)
amazon.com.au (ebook / paperback)
or any other amazon online stores worldwide.
Available from December 2013.
TWICE IS NOT ENOUGH.
… continued from Part Nine.
Tony was wide awake now. Faintly on his consciousness registered themselves the peripheral sounds of morning. Over the fence, the neighbour’s pestle was hitting and rolling in the mortar with a quick rhythmic thumping, smooth but noisy, legacy of innumerable generations.
Tony purred like a cat and sighed again into the bright rays of the eager morning sun. Last night’s surprise rain had tinged this morning’s harmattan with the soothing touch of sweet wet bliss.
In the backyard, or from the boys’ quarters, came the voice of the radio. Full of mixed opinions, it jumped from one topic to another like a mad and wise and, above all, delirious mind.
He listened a bit, but his interest soon slipped away from there and reluctantly focused on the issue of Ngozi. It was something he did not want to think about for the simple reason that he did not know what to think about it, how to handle it. So, yet again, like he had done the previous evening when Ada told him of her encounter with Ngozi, he rolled it carefully along the periphery of his thoughts for a few thinking seconds and then pushed it away and began to reflect instead on what 1999, only six days away now, would have to offer.
With this turn of his thoughts, suddenly he heard and perceived the sounds and smells of Yuletide again.
Christmas period in Lagos. No wonder the sun was so bright.
The radio had overcome its indecisiveness and settled down to singing Boney M Christmas songs. Songs that had accompanied him, Christmas after Christmas, from childhood into the harsh forests of adulthood. Songs of which he never tired.
There is no time like Christmas.
A knock on the door and Ada barged in, smelling of a happy, busy kitchen.
“Tah lah!” she called in a sing-song voice, half-skipping in and throwing her arms wide open the way she did almost every morning, as if to say “I’m here!”
And she said: “It’s me again!”
“I perceive that it has not yet come to your notice that my door now swings, and most precariously so indeed, on only one hinge. It would be good to wonder why.”
Ada burst out laughing.
“A mystery for Hercule Poirot,” she replied between laughs.
“Even Hercule couldn’t solve this one. Only you can – with a simple confession; or, rather, admission.”
“Confessions are for convicted felons. As a rule, one should only confess when all the evidence point irrefutably against one. As for admissions, I leave that to presidents and the like.”
“You’ve changed o, you this woman! You now talk like a ring-leader.”
She laughed again.
“Ring-leader of what?”
“Of the things that have ring-leaders. There are many of them. They are always getting caught everyday. Infact, most channels make it a point of duty, as is easy to verify, to show us arrested ring-leaders at least once every week – ”
“And to showcase the unarrested ones at least once everyday,” she added dryly.
“You can’t blame them, when they have nothing else to show.”
“Television is all about advertising –” she began, with the voice of a school-teacher.
“So they’re advertising your fellow-ringleaders. You should be rejoicing. You people have taken over the world.”
“Yes, you should know. Aren’t you the one always watching T.V.?”
Now he growled and jumped out of bed. He found himself laughing although she had just digged him again on a sore spot. He raised his clenched fists and began to bounce. She raised hers too and circled him.
“Ah, do you think it’s all this silly bouncing? It’s not like that, you have to be cool. Approach, let me teach you a painful lesson.”
“I knew today would start with a morale-booster. I just never thought it would be this good – bestowing you with a swollen countenance. But let me apologise in advance –”
As he was talking she rushed forward with jabs.
“Wait wait wait – ” he ran back and began to bounce again. “Hm, I’m warning you o! What! Are you laughing at me?? Ok!”
Now they began to shadow-box in earnest, but made no contact, pulling all punches just before impact, until he began to breathe harder and then leaned against a table.
A worried look immediately came into her eyes.
“How do you feel now? I thought you said –”
“Yes, I’m fine,” he sighed. “I’ve recovered, but I’m still weak physically.”
“You fall ill too often.”
“That’s my destiny.”
They looked at each other without speaking, for a while. Then,
“I’m hungry. Ọkwọ Yuletide bonus is on the culinary way.”
“Hm! Mchm!… ” She made sounds not easy to spell and started to walk out of the room. “When Yuletide comes, you can ask him for your bonus! Me, I’m making my own normal breakfast. If you don’t want to eat it, no problem … But don’t let me catch you near the kitchen!”
He knew she was teasing. Something special was on the way.
“Ah-ah. Am I surprised?” he called after her through the door she’d left customarily ajar. “What else can one truly and honestly expect of a village-apparition…”
Her laughter floated back in, and he smiled too.
… continued in Part 11.
– AKA TERAKA.
If you want to skip the excerpts and read the full story of this delicate, subtle love story, the novella is availaable on
amazon.com (e-book / paperback)
amazon.co.uk (e-book / paperback)
amazon.de (e-book / paperback)
amazon.in (ebook / paperback)
amazon.ca (ebook / paperback)
amazon.com.au (ebook / paperback)
or any other amazon online stores worldwide.
Available from December 2013.
TWICE IS NOT ENOUGH.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 