And we shall sing as though
There be no morning,
Hear the night sway softly along, my dear
My heart is trying to say something
But I’ve forgotten the language
Of my ancestors…
But when we sing, I remember
A time before Christmas and December
When red earth and green hill and blue sky
Were home enough for us.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Du bist, was du bist
Egal, wo du bist
Klarheit ist die allerletzte Frucht
Der Werdereise durch Sehnsucht
Was ist dein Wort morgen wert?
Was war deine Vergangenheit wert?
Wofür du gestern gelitten treu
Dafür steh heute, tapfer, unscheu
Darauf warte, daß es fruchte
Deine Überzeugung neu befruchte
Du zu sein, wenn du nichts bist
Ist frei zu sein, wenn du alles bist.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I remember you
Almost everyday.
Do thoughts forget
Their creators? Heart
And common sense agree
In me that they never could.
I remember you daily.
Our childhood and youth
Made my heart what
It is today. And though
You’re gone who knows
Where in the Beyond,
Still my memories of you,
Brother, know no boundaries.
How many times did
We watch Joe Panther?
Little did we know that
We were watching our future.
For, like Tiger died and left Joe,
One of us would go
And the other would lonely stay.
And I remember how quietly
We sat, together, trying
To hold back and conceal
Our tears that first time
We watched La Bamba –
As if already then we knew
How it would one day feel.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
If you love someone, give them a Chance to hurt you. It’s not whether they hurt you or not that matters – they will – but the way and manner – how – they hurt you or try to hurt you.
This is what will tell you everything you need to know about the Person in relation to yourself, and about the nature and future of your relationship.
Only those who will love you to the end deserve to have the right to hurt you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
How deep is homogeneity?
Does the colour of our skin
Express our similarity
Or mask the differences within?
How deep is nationality?
Does the passport we share
Stamp an ideological ethnicity
Or is it convenience out of fear?
Some plant gardens of roses
Some love lilies alone
Another meadow composes
A bouquet of everyone
Who can say rose gardens
Are prettier than plains
That lilies alone gladden,
Or a field that all contains?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Don’t allow them to reduce you
To the picture they have of you
In the picture they have of themselves
Be proud of who you are
What you are, how you are
It is what the world needs
Stay. In your element, stay.
Be proud of who you are
But define it for yourself by yourself
Don’t be the canvas on whose back
They paint and admire themselves
And cover you up in the voiceless dark.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Yield
Like the fields
Do yield
A piece of you
For the season of ripening
Is upon your feet.
All your old sins, and new too
All your old fears are new too
Even your old hopes will become new
Strengths, thoughts and dreams
Have rested long enough, it seems
Have rested long enough, it seems
Yield
Like the fields
Do yield
A multitude of fruits and roots
And all were offshoots
Of just one seed
So, yield to your need
And be the seed
And the fruit
And be the answer today
To the question you asked yesterday
Become one with your longing.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Denn die kleinen Melodien
Neugierig, wie sie sind
Wandern gerne dorthin
Wo sie nichts zu suchen haben
Bitte, bitte, jetzt nicht
Hilft nichts. Sie tun es trotzdem
Bitte bitte jetzt nicht
Sind bloß die Strophen ihrer Melodie
Wer kann es widerstehen
Mit der Musik mit zu tanzen?
Musiker sind ja nur Jäger
Ihnen geht es nicht
Um die Küsse, die Herze, die Tränen
Ihnen geht es nur um die Melodie
Der sie folgen –
Meisterin, trete auf mir
Benutze meine Seele, wie du willst
Ich will dir dienen.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
After the cool breeze had relaxed her somewhat, her anger receded and her mind slipped out of the bus and travelled to her brother, the university drop-out. Having been rid of one set of anxieties, she was now besieged by an other and quite different one.
Tony.
Why couldn’t he be like other people? Afterall he wasn’t the only poet ever born, nor would he be the last, would he?
Thinking about Tony brought pain always to Ada’s heart. If it wasn’t the pain of disappointment, sorrow or worry, it was the pain of incomprehension and yearning.
She slipped her hand into her shopping bag by her feet and brought out the sheets of paper he had given her, a look of hope in his eyes, early that morning before she left for the market.
The Molue bus ambled and roared on. And what a roar. By now they had gone past the Air Force Barracks and were fast closing in on Ikeja Bus-stop, the outer. Because it was the middle of the day, there were not too many people at the intermediary bus-stops who were going their way.
Like a fruit ripening out of the skies, an ADC plane bore down, above and to the left of them, but fast and loud sinking, into the domestic airport behind the National Petrol Station on the other side of the road. One of the bus-conductors was already leaning out of one of the perpetually open doors of this Lagos road-monster, preparing to shout out his route and stops to the pedestrians waiting at the bus-stop.
Another conductor was guardedly, swiftly, unsmilingly moving from one seat to the other, collecting his fare.
He was soon by her seat. His rough hand quivered, open palm face-up, before the faces of the three women sitted there.
“Yes? Owo da!” His voice permitted of no negotiations. His eyes were fixed, heavy-laden, on Ada’s exposed dark brown thighs. As she paid him, his eyes lifted a trifle and hers caught them. They stared at one another coolly for one moment, then he turned, his money in hand, to go.
“Ah-ah! Changi mi da?” the heavy-set woman on Ada’s left called loudly at him.
“Ma fun ẹ change, jọọ, durooo,” he replied without turning back.
“Give me my change now! Ole! Thief!” she ejaculated poisonously at him.
Ada shifted a little to the side and stole a glance at her from under the corner of her eye. The woman had a fleshy face that pinched in her eyes and weighed down the corners of her lips.
The conductor turned around and thrust a twenty naira note into her outstretched claws. As he turned to give her the money and then turned back again to continue with his fare-collection, his yellow-brown eyes slid back and forth again up and down and across Ada’s full, exposed thighs, and there was a look in those eyes.
Instinctively, Ada locked her knees tightly together and haunched forward over her upper thighs. The woman to her left saw everything and, with an amused smile, turned her face away and pointed her eyes out of the open window. Now that she had collected her change, she could afford to be thus entertained even by the offshoots of the things the eyes of the same conductor now did, and in the back of the woman’s throat Ada again heard the little dirty laugh. Why was Lagos so dirty?
… to be continued.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
I saw hope, lost
On the hills, amnesiac
And she was
Looking for hope.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
