The people on the street The street on the people Weighing them down… The people in the street The street in the people Lifting them up… What we push down Will one day rise back up. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Of Current Affairs
REAFFIRMING DIGNITY
When a woman leaves a man who loves her to follow a man of money, it is the most crushing pain a man can feel. But if he does not let it kill him, it will only liberate him in the end. Every once in a while you have a chance to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself “I am somebody”. Something will push you there. Something that seems aimed at robbing you of your dignity, your pride, your self-respect. Something that will try to tie your actual value as a human being to some material status or achievement or level of acceptance by someone or some people. Something that will make you feel small. And nothing does this deeper than love that chooses money over you. Then you have to stand in front of the mirror and look into the soul of that man staring back at you and recognise his true value. Remind yourself of the principles at the core of your foundations as a Human Being. Remind yourself of what connects you to God and to true life. And teach yourself again that your value is more than your monetary wealth or material standing. And don’t allow anyone to tell you otherwise – not any man and not any woman. Because, In Your Dignity, You Are Somebody.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
DON’T SURRENDER IT ALL TO AI
The primary aim of artistic expression is inner clarification of self, as well as personal spiritual development. The secondary aim is communication and sharing of ideas, which in any case always happens automatically as a by-product.
If you outsource all your artistic creativity to Artificial Intelligence, then, yes, finished works of a certain mould will be generated, but your spirit will not grow. And the purpose of your earthlife – the very purpose of life itself – will not be fulfilled. This lies alone in the continuous development of your “I” through self-exertion, self-clarification and the constant effort towards pure and accurate self-expression of intuition via thought into word and deed.
AI will produce works that resemble beauty, but will lead to the atrophy and death of the human spirit – unless you critically interrogate those works and then correct, reject or surmount them with your own personal effort, your own intuiting and reasoning. Don’t surrender to AI. Learn it but remain above it. Artificial Intelligence will make you look good, make you feel good, but only you can become better by yourself, by your own effort. The ancient rule is still the same, there is no short cut to success.
It is very imperative, in this era of artificial intelligence, for each person to remain personally creative, as well as spiritually and intellectually active and independent. Make the effort to think your own thoughts through to the end, and formulate and write them down by yourself. Compose, rehearse and record your own music. Make your own art. Draw the inspiration not just from others, but also, like before, from within the fathomless depths of your immortal spirit. Spend time in the silence of your heart, listening to your inner voice, hearing yourself by yourself and not from the programmed algorithm of an AI companion’s voice.
And also continue to do as many things with your hands as possible. Build. Make. Write. Go out into the world. Use your physical muscles, use your brain muscles, use your heart muscles, use your soul and use your spirit. And also, PATRONISE THOSE WHO DO SO, THOSE WHO STILL PRODUCE BY THE EFFORT OF HUMAN CREATIVITY. When you do this, you are not doing them a favour, but you are doing yourself and humanity and our future a SERVICE!
This is the only way they will grow. This is the only way we will grow. This is how we survived as a species over millions of years. This is how we got here. By the agency of Natural personal Human Intelligence. WE have always been the ones evolving, the ones plumbing our own depths, the ones developing. Thus: Woe betide us today if we now, tempted by convenience, hand that task now over to a self-programming and self-learning artificial algorithm we fashioned. Like the Zauberlehrling who can no longer deactivate or control the witchcraft he awakened. We would thereby have marked the beginning of the end of the story of the human spirit on Earth.
We are the generation that must tame the beast we have created, and ensure that it remains a servant and never becomes the cold lifeless master of our destiny, literally and figuratively. AI is wonderful for sourcing and collating information, and sorting and delivering it coherently. It is also marvellous at generating alternative versions of expressive output. But it cannot see the light. It cannot produce that individual unique recognition that can only come from deep within you. And it cannot produce the NEW, a truly new and different future. It can only regurgitate and re-permutate the past.
The production of Newness is still the purview and the task of the living and active human spirit. Let AI not be our last invention. Let us continue to bestir ourselves to intuit, imagine, innovate and invent even greater creations in the future, greater and higher than AI, and which also come from us – or through us. For WE are human spirit.
Retain your primary art-form in your hands. Don’t outsource it in the name of comfort, or vanity, or convenience, or competition, or materialism. Save and continue to develop that which is most valuable to us – our spirit. Let art, intuition and inspired thinking continue to be tools for personal inner growth through the joy of effort.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
GUM BUBBLE
Something is wrong with the world fundamentally, But nobody can put their finger on what it is exactly. The world’s borrowers owe the world’s lenders much more money Than the whole world makes and owns - It’s almost funny. Where did all that money come from and where did it go to? Creditors and debtors are one and the same entities too. What is money? What is currency? Before them how did the world feel? The value of distrust is greedy - It’s all just numbers. It’s not real. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
NEITHER HERE NOR THERE
Those that live in foreign lands But never really left their home Whose hearts never cup the sands Upon which their reluctant feet roam And the prints made where each boot stands Will be washed away by the evening foam Of a suspicious tide that never understands The ripened fruits of an alien-like biome - - Ye shall go back home with empty hands To a strange land that is no longer home. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
YOU MUST BE PATIENT
There will be hope But the heart must cope First with a season Of conflict sans reason This moon is long faced And tied to a dead sea Rolling scrolls misplaced By startled history. You must be patient Time is clairaudient It hears your heart beating And your footfalls repeating The dance to victory. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
THE RIVER IS RUNNING
The river is running The river of blood Swallowing up, drowning The kwashiorkor road A finger on a trigger Is going to pull one day Mushroom clouds bigger Than any from yesterday. The time has come again To learn how to survive And stand alone in your pain If only you are left alive Children torn from parents Friends and families will scatter In wars between governments Of people who think they matter. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
AGE OF DAMAGE
This is a war that has been waiting to happen They don’t love each other and never did They are not forgiving each other deeds overlapping Generations whose hatred they never hid They send missiles to greet each other The way you and I send words to one another When we’re angry and pain does not bother To differentiate between strangers and brothers It is the age of damage The stage of rage and carnage Angry birds in an iron cage Trapped in rampage. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
UNCOLONIZED
Chaos made us thirst Orderliness undid the rest Today we ravish with finesse This global concrete forest Immaculately dressed Inwardly lawless Appetite burning in our chest. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
EASY PREY
You call yourself, proudly, a man, Fiercely, loudly, a Black man! Prey. Easy prey. You are easy prey. Because you stand alone Because you mourn on your own Because you don’t show your brother Just how much you silently suffer Because you compete against each other In envy instead of bonding together Under the attacks of all those Who consider you their subhuman foes. Prey. Easy prey. You are easy prey. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 