Only a few days after
And already, that magical laughter
Like a wall-painting, hanging in time
Over there, at the back of my mind…
I turn around with thoughtful eyes:
Time stands still; ’tis the spirit that flies.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
English
HAS THE ERA OF ACTIVISTS BEEN REPLACED BY THE ERA OF ARTISTES?
It’s cool to be cool. That’s all. Just be cool, suave, classy, be a star at being a star. Having nothing to give, but looking good at it. Having nothing to live for, to die for, to sacrifice for the sake of others, but looking damn good while doing this nothing and you’ll grab the headlines. It’s just cool to be cool.
Everybody knows all the issues – and they’re tired of them all. It’s you they want, because you’re so cool.
Artistes are the new Activists. Fashionistas are the new freedom-fighters. Stars are our new Saviours. Satan is probably the name of some new perfume I’m sure my girlfriend will like. I better buy it, ‘cos it’s so cool to be cool. You can never go wrong being cool.
What are you singing? Why all these lyrics on hunger, on poverty, on war, on injustice and inequality, on materialism? Who on earth do you think still has time for that? Just touch my dark side in a cool way, I’m good that way. Artistes have taken over the world. Bow down, Activist, your day is done!
What on earth are you fighting for? No-one really cares any more. Words never changed anything anyway. Just be cool and you shall rule. The freedom fighter is the biggest fool. Who says we’re not free? They should fight for the freedom of their own coolness. Then they’ll be really free of pressures, free of constraints, free of unnecessary problems. Because cool is the true upper class.
Where are those intuitions of yore? Those convictions of years before before? Where are those humans for whom being human is the sole goal? We have forgotten ourselves and become agents of our masks, the cool artistes. Who do you think you’re lying to?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
LOST IN THE SWITCH
Alas! Treble now sounds
Like bass! Gold shines
Like brass! Who dulled
The taste of water?
Who turned sons into
Wailing daughters? Alas!
The wrappa moans
Look at me I am now
A pair of trousers, split in two!
Hush! Zip up your swollen lips
Cries the warrior’s breastplate!
Look at ME! I am now a Bra.
There is an owl howling
Melancholy in the night
A road has split in two
Causing confusion
Because the ground has
Disappeared.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
MONEY
Money markets
The feet are far from the heart
Don’t get me started
I’ll never stop abusing you
I just can’t get enough of you
Why am I crying, you say?
I’m crying because my heart is cold
I’m crying because I feel no pain
I’m crying because I’m dying
And I don’t care.
I just like having it, owning it
Taking it, but I’m crying.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MISTAKES
foot fault
pillar of salt –
halt! assualt
upon a moment of magic
timing almost tragic
never less expected
something so unexpected
the beauty of the game beckons on
through controversies in split seconds born
if time be a vault
into which the past retreats
then to it relegate the foot fault
and retake your seats
for the players play on
and the stayers stay on
and the logic of life, the magic game, beckons on.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
JUST BEING I
She named me River
Because I whet her lowlands
In the hour of her drought
– I saw a palm tree
Hotly pursued by a multitude
Waving palms
But I did not understand
The power from which they sprung
Forth – must I understand?
Which sane river stops to understand itself?
Waters may rise to clouds to fall back as rain
But what woman rises from her heart to her head
To peer back down into her heart from her head
To understand herself
Without losing the misty way back to the dawn?
For she is mysterious yes it is complicated
As simple as a riddle
The flowing is the being, picture-perfect
It is frozen
Faster! Faster! Faster!
Breathlessly I never tire
The day she catches me
Is the day
She will lose her desire for me. For
She calls me River.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
FIRST NATURE
I feel you close
All those of you
Who love the rose
Within you too,
When you’re near
All is fair
As virtue
When you’re gone
Or I the bridge
Have again undone,
Built a ridge,
I forget you,
Call you untrue
And intrigue…
But deep within
My human heart,
Beneath the skin,
Another part
Still remembers
In the fire’s embers
Our start.
There’s more in nature
Than what we see
Behind your second nature
Search quietly
There’ll you’ll find
Behind your mind
Your first nature…
The one that feels
The beings unseen
The one that heals
In the worlds between
Every night
Weeps for the Light
Unseen.
I feel you close
All those of you
Who love the rose
Within you too –
I know you’re near
I almost hear
And feel you…
A bond of love
Unbreakable
Linked to the Dove
A sacred table –
All those who know
Don’t let it show…
The world calls it a Fable.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
POLITICS
You never let the sun rise
Without it too making a compromise
Truths are protected by subtle lies
Give a little, grieve a little
Always grease a lot, take it all
In the spirit of we-sacrifice
Taboo and sacrilege you court
Hiding from safe place to safe place
Waving to your constituent electorate
But wait!, it’s a game, right?
Well played. You won again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
WHO KNOWS?
The tension is mounting
The spring is wound
The wind is waiting
The tornado is forming, is coming
Is come.
Pain is the voice
Of the garden in you
Inviting you to come into it
There to discover the newest treasure
It has prepared for you
Upon its peaks.
How far can you go?
How long can you walk a path?
How come?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
PAPERMINT
They say twisted minds don’t believe
When the way is straight
They draw back suspiciously and
Wait for wile and guile, to smile
The stiff alarm I ignored you
New you were lying, but still old you close
Paperminting fresh notes, suckers
That will get laid but won’t get paid
Flesh throaters singing of tribulation
I love to whip your twisted mind
Tongue lashes, reams of read streams
Streaks you shriek! Dream lines of silence scream.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 