Ị chọọ ka anyị hụ ụzọ
Ị chaara m n’ụzọ, eee, ị chaara m n’ụzọ… –
Ị chaara m n’ụzọ, ọ bụrụ na
Ị meperela ọnwe gị ụzọ –
Ụzọ bụ nke m… ụzọ bụ nke gị… –
Bịa ka anyị chaara ọnwe anyị n’ụzọ,
Bịa ka anyị chịa ọchị ọzọ.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
RENEWALS
Love affairs
Whirlwind
Across the desert of loneliness…
Reassuring me that I live.
I’m grateful for every ripe watermelon,
Every mango, every grapefruit, every tangerine,
Every kiwi, pawpaw, and orange, every peach,
Ụdara, every ube, every mmịmị,
Every plum, every berry, Cherry, each date,
Every passionfruit that ever whet my appetite
Suckled on the fingers of my thirst
Stilled my restlessness.
Yet after the storm
Came always the quiet morning
Free of desire,
Full of my heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
RÜCKSCHLAG
Nur eines habe ich gelernt
Du musst auf den Schlag verzichten
Denn die Kettenreaktion
Der entzieht sich niemand, auch du nicht
Die Erinnerung verfolgt mich
Jahr und Jahrzehnt um Jahr und Jahrzehnt
So früh am Lebensmorgen, kaum siebzehn
Doch verzichtete ich nicht auf den Schlag, den Rückschlag
Die Kettenreaktion, ihr entzieht sich niemand
Sie entfaltet sich in allen Richtungen
Wechselwirkung fragt nicht nach Gerechtigkeit
Alle Betroffenen sind beteiligt – auch Generationen später.
Bevor ich verschwinde, singe, gelinde, ich
Verzichte auf den Tiefschlag
Der Rückschlag wird wie eine lange Hand sein
Die alles umfasst. Lehrer. Richter. Unerbittlich –
Nur eines habe ich gelernt
Der wahre Sieg, der ist subtil; unfassbar.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE SHY IN EVERYONE
I can show you the earth, I can show you the sky, I can show you the sea, the sun and the moon; there is nothing I cannot show you, but my heart. Yet: what is in my heart, you may wonder? And truly there are only simple things therein, little things forgotten and unforgotten – yet I shall not show it to you.
You can touch the sky if you really try; you can swim every ocean, river, sea and Lake. You can stand on the moon, you can stroke a candle-flame; but, try as you might, you still cannot touch my heart, unless I let you. Not my heart… not this little heart of mine.
Is my heart fragile? Sometimes. Is my hard adamantine? Sometimes. What is a little human heart? A mountain? A sea? A cave? A mirror? A forest of flames? What?
I can show you everything but my heart, because locked within it is a painful shyness that simply cannot bear to be seen, or touched, the wrong way, by the wrong hand, or eye, too soon, too late. It is gone. Innocence. What happened?
If I could take away the Shyness from my heart, then I could show you my heart… but then all the fun would be gone. For a heart without shyness is only a memory of a heart – and my shyness is very precious to me and my heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
LOVE AFFAIR
When I tasted the spliff
Dragged it down to the level
Of my hungry black lips
It was a temptation it could not resist
Heavenwards it soared
With me, its quivering
Stub, on its mind
Where I met higher thoughts.
Write down
Your poems at the height
Of your madness
For after you return
You will not remember anymore
What thoughts those were
That came to you so naturally
When you were high in love.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
A BIRD FROM AN ALIEN COUNTRY
A girl arose from bed one morning
And heard the alien call
Of a bird
From an alien country
She looked out of her window
Saw the bird
Hovering in the air, calling…
The girl became confused
For she could strangely understand the bird’s song
And yet knew not its meaning:
The first person to trust me
Is mine…
Sang the bird.
And then the girl’s brother shed his night-gown
And flew out to meet the calling bird – the bird
From an alien country…
And the girl watched them fly away
Two identical birds
To their alien country
The first one to trust me
Is mine.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
SLIPPERY
I have seen
That Evil
Is deep
It has silenced me
For where it nests
Is the noiseless depth
Pay no attention to my words
They are a distraction
If you want to hear my message
Listen to my silence
My words will show you the way into my silence
Where I talk of treachery no words can describe.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MOUNTAINS LIQUID, MOUNTAINS LUMINOUS
Peoples of different origins
Colonised my heart
And raised therein an edifice
Of loneliness
And treasured dreams…
Look now at the liquid mountains
Luminous and eternal
Which have become my spirit’s
Backbone
Liquid mountains of moving light…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
When I say I love you
I mean it…
Inside each liquid mountain
Within each luminous elevation
Is a heart
Of gold, of fire, of love…
So love me forever, my dear.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
DEM BACHE GLEICH
Dein Körper sprach
Mein Körper brach
Fließe, fließe, kleiner Bach…
Das Harte geht unter
Das Zarte wird bunter
Meine Liebe, sei munter
Und mach’s dem Bache nach…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
DYING STARS
In our hearts we feel it sometimes, we know it fullwell, even when we deny the feeling to everybody, including ourselves and our best friends, yet we know: the star is dying…
There you see it, in the spiritual firmaments of the decaying soul. It used to be a bright star, friendly and confident, and pure as miraculous crystal. Once, it shone and sparkled, twinkled and flared and brightly laughed like a flaming eye in the skyscapes of who you truly are… in the skylines of your sensitivity and consciousness.
What is that song which just faded out? It was not any ordinary song, nay. It was the star that lived, and died…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 