Ich bin Fremder in Deutschland
Und bekomme es zu spüren
Weniger ist mehr
Doch die Da-zugehörigkeit
Sie überwiegt
Siegt.
Nie sah ich die Menschheit
Einig unter sich
Und man sagt, ich habe schon mehrmals gelebt
Seit Urzeiten mal hier
Mal dort
In vielen Menschenherzen, ewige Kultur
Immer gab es einen Grund,
Zwiezuspalten
Und das Miteinander immer wieder
Neu zu gestalten.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Manchmal sitze ich vor dem
Schönen großen Smart TV und
Beobachte nicht das Programm, sondern
Die eingebaute kleine Kamera drauf
Ein IT-Techniker in Lich, der
Hat seins zugeklebt. Die können
Alles sehen, hat er mich unterrichtet
Selbst wenn sie aus ist –
Ob das stimmt, wundere ich mich
Ziehe langsam die Unterhose aus
Ich sehe ihre tausend Gedanken
Und lenke sie von meinen ab.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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.
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
Ọ bụrụ na Igbo e weghị eze,
Ị mara na Igbo e weghị olu
N’ala ndị eze –
Ọ bụrụ na Igbo e weghị eze,
Ị mara na Igbo e weghị oche
Na ọgbakọ ndi eze…
Igbo, tinye anya n’ime obi unu
Wee chọta eze unu
Wee ghọta eze unu
Wee jiri otu olu
Wee soro eze unu…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Du hast deine Gefühle
Neulich bei mir geliefert
Her ein fuhr, wie ein Frachter
Ein Blick von Dir – Ich
Freue mich über die Sonne
Heutzutage. Die Sonne
Im Walde. Die nackten Zweige sind
Schwanger mit ungeborenen Blättern
Frühling. Zitternd vor Freude
Lass mich ’raus
Wackelnder Schwanz
Nach oben schaut ein Hund
Er sucht einen Bund
Sein Wunsch ist gesund
Lass mich ’raus
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
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.
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.
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
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
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 