I can’t sleep
Nor can I weep
If sadness were a grey cloud
I am the bottomless lake from which it arose
I miss your laughter, your mirth
Like dawn misses a birdsong
On a cold concrete city street
Before it fades away
Each time I burn pain into you
I burn pain into me; but if I
Were to not bite and hurt you so deeply
How would you continue to think of me?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
With every flight my thoughts take
In the sight of my heart
You become to me ever more natural…
A natural extension
No pretension.
I met you in your every age
At every which one of your many life-stages
I know your low, your high
Your I, for I have looked you in the Eye.
We shall grow. This is not the end
A new task. Opened, a new flask
Undone. Another mask, unmasked.
Another you. Another me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
My feet are stepping on me
My souls are brutalised
My grass is Thorn, apart
Strangers
Are laughing in glee
But my children do not understand
It is the foolish lizard
Who nods along wisely
To the snake’s slithering sermon
A child slaps his father
And corrects him
Did you hear the sky fall down?
Are you not ashamed?
If it is wisdom,
Why is it vestigial?
A short tree, shorter than me
Has peed on me –
Can I take it like a man?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Es fängt manchmal mit dem Gefühl,
Besser noch der Empfinden
An,
Manchmal mit dem richtigen Wort –
Manchmal wächst es, langsam, wie die Harmattan-Jahreszeit
Uns anwächst
Oder die zögernden Regen –
Es fällt manchmal aber mit dem Blick erst auf,
Nicht unbedingt dem ersten Blick,
Oder aber ihm auch doch –
Ein Mensch, der wirklich Mensch ist,
Der lebt unter dem Gewicht der Gegenmeinungen
Der Gesellschaft,
Wie eine Blume in der Wüste setzt er sich aber durch –
Das ist das dauerhafte Gedicht.
Das unsichtbare Gesicht, das bleibt doch das einzige Sichtbare…
Es tut weh, lohnt sich aber,
Der verbrannte Finger hat das leckere Essen gekocht,
Die Erdnuss überlebt das Feuer,
das Kind überlebt sein nächtliches Ungeheuer –
Was Wert hat, ist teuer –
Das Wasser ist teuer, das Wasser und das ewige Feuer…
Am Ende schmilzt alles
in sich zusammen ein –
Rauh ist fein, groß ist klein
Farbig ist farblos
Der afrikanische Urwald
Ein europäisches Grünhaus
Ein asiatischer Garten
Jedes sieht wie das andere aus
Das Menschenauge vertieft sich
Vereinfacht hat sich die Welt
Wir schauen um. Laufen von Zelt zu Zelt,
verirren uns nie.
Die Verbindungen sind so
gründlich –
Aufwiedersehen, ein Wiedertreffen, stündlich –
Ein Lied, ununterbrochen, wie eine Schienenbahn
Das Herz trommelt, das Atem pfeift, das Blut rollt entlang
Du kannst reden, was Du willst, von Rassismus
Von Unterschieden, von Babel, von Kommunikationslücken
Es geht tiefer, Bruder.
Wie auch immer, ich verstehe dich immer.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I see
Wavering eyes
Tied around my ankles
Tightly beaded the masquerade stumbles
The drums think it is a dance and praise on
The familiar djini pokes his feathered skull
Out of the future – here I am!
Leaden feet leading until again
We stand on the river bank…
Sorry, where exactly?
We have been singing for the boat
Since time immemorial –
Unreversedly.
The mamiwater’s melodious silence answers us
Yet our ancestors did not lie
When they reassured us that the only
Real things are the invisible ones
Who refuse to see us.
If there be no boat
How shall the river
Cross us over
Onto the promised sand?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
A smile is a gift-wrapped heart
A heart is an unspoken smile
You grow on me
Windows open up too
A transparent pane of glass
I see you through
Houses head upward
But we speak one tongue
This time. We change hearts
Like we change lanes –
We grow on us.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Some wounds cannot heal
Don’t open them for they are
Like the clock that ticks only forward
How ever often the cycle closes
Yet the wound still bleeds
Because I saw into your mind
All the I’m sorrys in this world
Only make it worse
We met, it seems, just to miss.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The worst pain I ever felt
Was once when I embraced someone
And my embrace, she said,
Made her think of someone else.
Some things you should keep to yourself,
Yet it’s better when they’re spoken out
And it’s best of all when they hurt like hell.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Women are so serious, you know
There’s a way she looks at you sometimes
From beneath her eyelids
And you know
She’s taking a second look
Because you passed the first test
Then even your heart skips a beat
You don’t want to fail the test
But you don’t want to pass it either
Oh how you want to pass it! Oh no
Oh yes – oh, shut up! Men are pigs.
Just be grateful for whatever she gives you
And try not to mess it up too much
You don’t deserve it anyway.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
There’s a woman I met
When the night was dark and long
And she walked, she walked along
Alongside me…
And she walked and walked with me
Through fields of chequered thoughts
And she said, she said everyday to me:
We belong together…
Together, wherever you go
Together, wherever you are
Together, however life fares
Together we walk
Where fears are hard to hide
She walks within my heart, golden torch bearer
And love forever mine.
I say it everyday to her:
Thank you, Love
But all she does, when all is grey
Is walk, she walks within my heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 