When will he stop
Persecuting that guitar
His voice is hoarse
It hurts her
It digs a hole in her armour
Roughly
And scoops her out
Hoarsely
I wish I could remember him
In my dream tonight
When silence is wall
Enclosing me and she is gone
His voice is gruff
A street musician
Enjoying his moment on stage
Roughly.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THERE IS a frenzy in the air. The world is dark and bloody like an ominous sunset. The land is full of cogitation. Everybody is fired up, wired up, wound up like an electric train, toy trains on their permanently defined tracks. There is a sad desperation in their every chug and hoot, in their every wailing whistle, a longing for a freedom that will never be, must never be, because this freedom, freedom from these tracks, this prison, would mean the end of destiny, the termination of purpose and of life.
This is the continuum in which I live. A dark and dirty cocoon. But who dares to break out? Who dares risking the encountering of the recognition that, truly, all one might be is a toy e-train on toy tracks mounted on a table in the children’s playroom? Who shall risk this dare, in the hope of finding another reality, the celebration of birth of butterfly?
A longing, hard to define, was long the taproot. The root of roots and hope of hopes. The dream unremembered in the clamour of urban dawn. Generation gap after generation gap. Yawning emptiness. Your blood is much too soggy. It weighs you down and is choking you to death, dear continuum. You are more than city, more than state, more than country, more than region, subregion, continent or subcontinent, even you are more than world. You are continuum. And I hate you. Hate you for holding me, for binding me, for being an extension of me and a limitation of me. I hate you because I hate loving you. I love you but I don’t like you. I hate loving what I don’t like. I hate hating you. I wish I could stop hating you and start loving loving you. I am afraid of you. You make me sick. You make my heart beat with a deep quietness that I know to be peace.
Why? Continuum of urban disconnect, why? When the sun rises you will wake me up from my insomnia and refuel me with your frenzy. I flee into the deep.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I’m feeling down today
The perfect mood
For poetry
He’s played the music
So long
He’s lost in the music now
That musician on stage
Is an echo of the poetry
Eating me inside.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Laß mich
Dich erreichen,
Dir entweichen
Dein weiches ich…
Ich guck hinein
In Dich hinein
Der Abendwein
Der Morgenschein
Glüht und glüht
Und glüht…
Laß mich
Dich erreichen,
Dir entweichen
Und streicheln,
Mein Schatz,
Dein weiches ich.
Dein weiches
Ich…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Love is a unique thing
It possesseth that quality
Which for want of comprehension entire
One feels inclined to call magic
It overcomes all obstacles
And, as an obstacle, cannot be overcome
How it does this, no one knows
But the Origin of Love itself
Open yourself to love
That it may full-fill you
The more you love,
The more you live.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Art in all its forms
Is the thief of time
Stealing from the past
Sharing with the present
And the future
Like Robin Hood
For time is wealthy in memory
And, like Shylock, reluctant to give.
An evening song will reawaken your life’s morning
A painting will view like déjà vu from lives unremembered
And a poem will whisper your life’s story back to you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Human characters incarnate
And re-incarnate.
Each stay on another Earth is but
A continuation.
It is limited by time and
Saturated by responsibility.
There is a task…
– this is the objective happening,
always to be borne in mind.
The key to fulfilment is Love,
Always to be borne in Heart.
You running and you running and you running away,
Sang Mr. Bob Marley
But you can’t run away from yourself.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije..
Warum bin ich von der Liebe
stets heimgesucht?
Sie schlägt mich mitten im Unerwarteten,
erweckt die tiefste Sehnsucht.
Sie zerreißt mich, durchwühlt mich,
stellt mich unter ihre Macht –
Sie überrascht mich, schwächt mich, bricht mich…
gibt nie Acht
auf meine Ängste, Hoffnungen, Vorurteile,
treibt mich gnadenlos zu meinem Heile.
Du brennst, Herz,
als würdest Du gleich verbrennen
und möchtest an einem Tag
gleich alle Ewigkeit erkennen.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Everywhere I sought it
I sought in every land
To know if Nature’d wrought it
Anywhere beneath her hand
But though I searched with all my might
And though I looked forever
I’ve never seen before my sight
An ugly flower ever.
Sometimes it might seem to be
She‘s hidden and can‘t be seen
Through land or on the sea
As though she never hath been
Yet when ever a Flower blossoms
When a Flower blooms
Pure beauty is all I see in dozens
In all my heart’s rooms.
Did Heaven ever come to earth?
Did Beauty ever give birth?
Womanhood indeed is Heaven’s flower
Heaven’s beauty, Heaven’s grace and Heaven’s power.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Ein gesprochenes Wort
Soll wie eine reife Frucht sein
Die fallen muß –
Ansonsten
Halte es noch eine Weile zurück
Und warte, wie es Bäume tun.
Durch Sturm und Wind
Zu Boden gerissenen, unreifen Früchten
Trauern wir immer nach
Selten
Geben sie auch einen Samen frei
Der keimen wird. Keimen kann.
Schwer wiegen
Leicht wiegen
Gesagt ist gesagt.
Schweigen ertragen
Alles Saat hat seine gute Zeit
Zum Ertragbringen.
Ohne Winter
Kein Frühling, kein Sommer
Ohne harren, kein Herbst.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 