MASKING PRIDE

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What’s behind the veil?
Nothing. The veil is your face
I don’t need a mask
My face masks my thoughts

The reason why I don’t hide things
Is because the best hiding places
Are out there in the open
That’s why you don’t see it

You don’t believe the things I tell you
Because I tell them to you
But if I were to hold them back
You would start to look for them in my Silence

And you would look and look
Until you became a prisoner of my Silence
So why don’t you appreciate it
When I just tell you in plain simple words

That I love you?
I killed you when I took off your mask
Now you want to kill me, by putting
A new different one back on.

But I already saw the girl within
Hidden deeper than shame and sin
Struggling with the pain within
And Pride is her middle name.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FAMILIAR INTIMACY

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Why do people grow lonely
In a union warm and homely?
I have heard of walls that rise
So slowly it comes as a surprise
To find out that familiarity kills
The very intimacy that it fulfils.

– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.

ELOPERS

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It is a story that always breaks and
Runs away from its observers
Like the baffling speed of light

No outsider ever understands what is happening
When it’s happening
Always it breaks the fabric of logic

Only the two lovers themselves, only they
Who follow the inner call of shared love
Understand the logic of magic.

– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.

AGAINST POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS

~ Che

Political correctness
Has fallen out of favour

Racial correctness
Is the new In-thing
The new hypocrisy
The new incarnation of evil

All you clever cowards
Claiming it’s time to be politically Incorrect
You have simply replaced one evil
With another –
Racial correctness
Cultural correctness
Religious correctness
Narrow-hearted correctness

That’s what brings in the Votes now.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

WANDLUNG

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Die Liebe ist ein
Schlafwandler –
Du weißt nicht wo
Du hin gehst, überhaupt daß
Du hin gehst
Trotzdem folgst Du ihr
Vertrauensvoll und blind und wunderst Dich beim
Aufwachen, wie weit
Wie unglaublich weit sie Dich, sie uns,
Gebracht hat.
Was machen wir jetzt?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

DIVIDE AND RULE

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Look for someone who has ambition
Then use him – or her, my dear – to block the ascent of
The one who has true ability.
For, the one with genuine ability is
The real threat to you.

I reckon someone whispered these words into
The ears of every dictator and every colonizer
Every leader and every conqueror and
Every CEO and manager, supervisor and general manager
That ever lived

Or else they would not all be doing it
So excellently.

– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.

EMPFANGEN

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

Manchmal kann man einen Menschen
Nach nur einer Begegnung viel besser verstehen
Als nach zehn Treffen

Wie manch ein Zaubergedicht, dessen Bedeutung
Man beim ersten Lesen voll und ganz tief empfing

Und bei weiterem Lesen
kompliziert und mühsam selber
Versucht,
gewaltsam denkend
dem Gedicht abzuringen

Vergebens.

– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.

DON’T SHOOT

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When a gun shouts
It sounds like a whip on crack
So why are you laying that wound
On your brother,
Brother?

You have none other than
The last one you just buried
Those graves are not for the brave
Your brother’s life is all you have,
Brother.

Soldier soldier don’t shoot
Fingerfood for thought is trigger for the unhappy
A life in exchange for a shot
And you call that a fair deal?
Poor substitute.

But they say, look here
We don’t like all these heavy words.
Give us laughter, give us comfort, give us food
Give us pride, give us a shining ring
Or, if you can, give us hope.

Someone has to get up
Someone has to get up first.

– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.

ỤWA NWANNE

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Mepee ntị, gee ntị…
Ịhụnanya na-agụ egwu
N’ime obi gị…

Anyị bụ otu –

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SOLIDARITY WITH SELF

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Your brother in the ghetto
Is still your brother –

He might not have attended
The same type of schools as you did

He might not have acquired
The same kind of polish as you did

He might not even know
That you’re not as different from him

As he thinks
He might think

What you think: you’ve become strangers
No. He is still your brother

And when a bullet comes in the dark
It can’t tell the difference between you and you.

– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.