GRASPING

Why don’t people recognise a great thing
And just take it when it comes their way?
Without hesitation, without doubting
The magic, just join in the game and play?

Maybe because it does not always
Come in the form we expect and want -
Because God’s Ways are not our ways,
Our intellect is sharp but our intuition is blunt.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

CHOOSE

The Person I choose
Has to choose me too
In order for me to choose them
There is no us without you
Only me.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

ASK NOT

All I asked for was the truth -
But that question alone
was enough
to disturb, to disrupt
and to destroy everything.

Ask, and you shall be given.
Ask not, and you shall be forgiven.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DON’T GET LOST IN THE DARK

Don’t get lost in the dark
Wait for the mist to clear
The emotions never speak the truth
They are always informed and biased by feelings
You just have to wait for the mist to clear
It takes a shorter or longer time to pass
Depending on your nature
And depending on the circumstances
Just don’t get lost in the dark.

Azuka Chukwumerije

Die Freude an Arbeit

Seit einiger Zeit fällt mir mehr und mehr auf, dass viele Menschen eine enorme Energie darauf verwenden, sich vor jeglicher Arbeit zu drücken. Und …

Die Freude an Arbeit

IS TIME A CIRCLE?

Is time a circle, not a line?
Does it have a center?
A Center to which we return
When we lose our Center?
A moment in our childhood,
A time from another life,
Something that never changes,
A piece of eternal life.
A recurring dejavu -
I have been here before
And so have you
Like Waves on the sea shore.
The seasons recur for a reason
The past repeats itself intermittently
We come from the Future
And it is waiting for us to return impatiently.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

I DREAM EVERY TIME I FALL ASLEEP

I dream every time I fall asleep
And it’s always one adventure or the other;
Conversations with beloveds I keep,
My best friend, my father, my brother,
And strangers too with whom I laugh and weep
And fight and love and comfort one another;
The dangers are real, the emotions are deep,
Every fear, every tear, every worry and bother;
At times I weightless fly, or I burdened creep,
Through encounters that liberate or smother,
But I’m always conscious even in the Deep,
As awake as a baby born out of its mother.
For I have vows to keep and sowed seeds to reap -
And before it gets lighter it will get darker -
And miles to go and never really sleep.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

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

NO OTHERS

I stopped wanting others
After I met you -
And I still don’t want any others
Even after I’ve lost you.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

PEOPLE SAY ALL SORTS

When people insist
I love you more
Put them to the test
They won’t love you anymore

When people claim
I don’t love you anymore
Treat them the same
They’ll love you once more

Don’t base everything
On just what people say
People will say anything
Just to get through another day

Everybody wants happiness
But not everyone really knows
How to get that happiness -
We’re all searching and it shows.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river