Dead trees
blowing in the breeze
as if they were living,
yet they are dying
Foreign lands
stretching out their hands
as if they were giving.
But they are lying…
They are taking, taking back
what they lack
More than what they give –
they need More to live.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
How deep must be the night
Inexhaustibly deep
To awaken such endless restlessness
In countless sleepless souls
And there you see Love
Wandering in lonesome search
Like a homeless stranger on earth
Restless, tireless, nervous
Moving from heart to heart
Knock knock knocking on human’s door
‘Tis not the love of partner pleasure
It is higher, it is Compassion
And through the restless night
Quietly in spirit we search
As though we were desperately listening
For love’s footsteps in our hearts.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The way your friends of today
Speak about their friends of yesterday
Is the way they’ll speak about you
To their friends of tomorrow too.
It’s easy to read the future
All you have to do is remember the past
Most things stay true to their nature
The first shall be the last
It’s always pride that leads to the fall
When people peak ‘cause they know it all
The sin that brought an angel down
Beware of it when your heights you crown
Those that swim in every wind
Will fall under the influence of your every whim
But when events keep you far away
Another’s mind will bend them its way
And those that always rise again
Or stand when others fall in pain
No-one can say the reason why
Yet, no matter what, they never leave your side
It’s easy to read the future
If you know how to read the past
Most things stay true to their chosen nature
The first shall be the last
That’s why when an Oak falls
Which long stood undefeated and tall
We feel an odd sadness, vulnerability
Injury upon our sense of stability
It is also the reason why
When a Sinner repents, beyond the Sky
The Angels are moved to their very core
And rejoice like never before…
It’s easy to read the future
Too often it mirrors the past
Yet leave a little room for error
For the human heart is vast.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Plenty of questions but no gaps, only seeming gaps – but how would you know unless you first tried to fill the gaps in answer to your questions? Then you fathom that you are the gap, you are the question, and the answer rests in you.
Plenty of questions, but not all are gaps. Plenty of gaps, but only some are visible, while the rest, the sleeping questions, are still waiting for you tomorrow. You don’t even know your deeper questions yet, the ones that will really tear you out of yourself and make you a part of something bigger than you could ever conceive of today.
Because you are the gap and the question, you are the answer, the future and the fate. And the more you find yourself, the more you find your questions. And the more you find yourself, the more you find your answers. Until there are no gaps left, and everything becomes simply the story.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Human beings can be very unjust
Because some are mean and some are blind
But she teaches me to ever trust
In the victory of love true and kind
She flows with the rhythm silently
And subtly sets the tone
She fulfils something for everybody
Until each feels she is their own
She flows, stands, dances, hovers
She softens hunters and strengthens gatherers
She makes Knights of all her lovers
And Kings out of gardeners
She defeats deserts of both soil and heart
She is an oasis all on her own
She awakens new worlds, reawakens that part
Of me that has turned into stone.
Be ever on the look-out for her
Like a watchman from his tower –
Protest her when you see her; thus will you know her:
She who flows is the flower
She opens her heart for all to drink
Who bear the natural thirst,
She expresses what all lovers think
Because she was the first
An irresistible smile is her crown
Radiating unselfishly,
She lifts my spirits when I am down
She gives unceasingly
She arrests with her quiet dignity
She‘s humbly proud, yet vulnerable
She is the salvation of the concept of purity,
Accessible but unsoilable
She is Natural, normal, ordinary
A caring, healing gem
She flows with her lovers’ and guardians’ story
Encourages, comforts, ennobles them
She awakens tears and gentle smiles
Just by being there;
Beautiful above all transient styles,
A beauty always and fair
Her lovely whiff, caught from afar
Releaser of the deepest sighs
She is a mirror of heaven’s star
Lights up my soul and eyes
She’s nature’s victory over human art
Mightier than pen and sword
She speaks deeply to the human heart
Without saying a word
And has one distinct feminine feature:
In her grace lies her power.
She FLOWS with the currents of nature
That’s why she’s called the FLOWER…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The Elite and Power-holders, traditionally few in number, always find a way to prevent the masses from uniting against them. The most popular and effective, trusted and time-tested, methods are the instigation and strengthening of racism, tribalism, sexism, religious intolerance, etc, within and amongst and between the masses. Man, being a living being, soaks up these sentiments and they grow within him, upon which he begins to also defend and propagate them; thus they become self-perpetuating from generation to generation, across centuries, and people even forget where and when and why these things started.
But these things were never the actual problem of the masses in the first place. It’s all an illusion. True, when different sides happen upon each other there is initial distrust and competition; but there is also curiousity, such that left on their own – if there is no conscious malicious and insidious effort to awaken fear of each other amongst them – they will always merge with time as they unite in the common struggle to master the battle of life. Especially when they face a common threat, e.g. nature and the elements.
But man has a fragile nature sometimes. In his struggle to master his own personal little life he can lose sight of the bigger picture, thus making him gullible and susceptible to the intrigue and manipulation of those who seek their own personal and selfish goals. And those who have money and power, or who strive after money and power, know well to prevent the masses from ever uniting against them or developing a WE-consciousness as a united group. Thus they keep them occupied with the individual struggle for existence, or distracted by a media barrage of empty things of no importance and, as the master stroke of genius, they keep them divided amongst themselves by pulling the strings and feeding the sentiments of religion, ethnicity, race, sexism, etc.
Any leader or leadership system which really loves its people will seek to unite them. This however is rare. Instead what we see are power-centers which perpetually ensure that the flames of division (religion, racism, ethnicity) never die. All the rest of the people perpetuating these things are just blind tools. But if you follow the trail of the true power-centers it will always lead to where the money is. Follow the trail of the money’s smell. Those who have the money – who OWN the global wealth – are the ones who make sure that those who need the money always stay divided amongst themselves. Divided and distracted, so that they will never see the effort being deliberately made to keep them from recognising the path that will lead to freedom. The path of unity.
People, unite.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I cherish the sight
I cherish the night
Moon-crowned… moon-found
The Poetry is so profound
That strikes the Deep
Out of its Sleep
When the fortnight is twice over turned
And the Full-Moon has returned.
I hear the lone wolf again
From the stillness of the deep and the pain
Howling from out of my Heart…
Howling from out of my Heart…
The moon…
The moon…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Believe unsanctimoniously
Burn robustly
Brave love. It is all we’ve got.
A tree gnome
Is mightier than his tree
For his tree is but his shadow.
When you serve love
You become a master of the universe.
And cease to be a shadow.
’Tis no cliché
God actually said “Let there be Love”
But we heard let there be light…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
“If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.”
– Chinua Achebe.
When you see a well-cleared road through the jungle, it is sometimes hard to imagine that once upon a time there was no road there, only trees and bush. To put it differently, when you see a jungle in front of you, it is sometimes hard to see a road whose past was a jungle. So stoic and self-justifying in its impenetrability that it would never have occurred to anybody that this jungle has no right to block our path; that anywhere we say “Let there be road”, there will be road; that it is not for the jungle to blind us to our possibilities, but for us to open the jungle up to our needs; that we have the right and the ability to choose and determine the range of our options by ourselves; that it is not the task of roadlessness to indoctrinate us from birth into the stupor of its own inevitability, but for us to be immune to the concept of “roadlessness”, and learn to see the obvious: it is man that defines himself.
But once in a while, a person comes alone, a special mind of deep intuition struck by an unaccountable thought. What if I am not who they say I am? What if I am something else? What if this jungle is not what we assume it is? What if it is a road dressed up with trees? What if that “mirror” they’ve placed in front of me is not a mirror, but a painting of what they want me to think I am? What if I now make my own mirror, with which my kind and I can see ourselves as we really are – what would I then see? What if the freedom they’ve given me is in truth a mental prison? What if the education they’ve brought to me is in truth a software of mind-control? What if?…
Once in a while, a person wakes up because the “What if?” moment has taken root in his consciousness. And, like a mustard seed, the “What if?” question will mature into a “Yes, indeed” answer in this person’s mind. And this person will become a leader. This person will part the red sea of somnambulism. This person will turn the mirror around. This person will change the context of the conversation. This man will open a road where others saw an impenetrable jungle. This person will rid the obvious of its garb of concealment, allowing it to arise in all its naturalness and normalcy, so intoxicatingly immediate, this simple truth: we are not who they say we are, we are who we know we are.
Pioneers and groundbreakers like this are very rare and far-between. But every once in a while, they step on the stage, to nudge the development of a people’s consciousness one step forward, creating new inner living spaces for the growth and flourishing of generations of consciousness.
Such a person is Chinua Achebe.
Many things fell apart when his first novel appeared; above all, the tight bind of redefinition wrapped around the thinking and perceiving faculty of the average colonised and educated African. It began to unravel, spearheading in its wake a generational surge for self-re-redefinition that did not stop with the generations that midwifed its birth, but has transplanted itself from generation to generation. Like every unravelling, it has been untidy. We know what we were. And we know what we aren’t. Armed with these pieces of the puzzle, we struggle to attain the living definition of the question: Who are we? A journey buffeted by the twin helpers of self-pride and self-criticism as we travel on along that road cleared through the jungle by vanguards such as the late and forever unforgotten Chinua Achebe.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There is in me a very soft spot for naked tables and chairs, pens and empty sheets of paper, and a feeling that if I do not write the poem write now, it will never come again. It is a very special soft spot and very dear to me, sees me through lonely nights and empty restless days and times of unfocused focus and focused unfocus and is much better than many other a pleasure.
The heart is inside, the voice outside, and a strong voice without a heart is as baseless as the pointlessness of a voiceless heart, burning and knowing and mute. I have a very soft spot in me for that quick tender urge that would have me run again, a pen upon waiting sheets, a snow-lion stalking buried treasures, a singer learning and singing new songs, simultaneously.
Water is the king and when your heart runs like water, poetry becomes an uncheckable force – everywhere you hear it… everywhere you hear it. It follows you, it enters you, it captures you until you have mastered yourself in it, then it sets you free to roam again. Yes, this is my jungle.
I have in me a so soft spot for that glowing star, yonder flame that has decided to call me Home. Yes, Song, let it ring, and with my life I will follow, poet and musician and man. There was a beginning but, I vow, there shall be no end to eternal tenderness inside you and me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 