There are many stories in the water But not all will flow away Some will sink down to the bottom With all the things they have to say Buried in the depths of a culture That runs like a river from yesterday Stories of survival of slavery and torture And chains and whips and treachery While you swim and while you sail While you drink and wash your tears away Bitten by sharks, swallowed by whales Black took an L, but is still in play Secrets survive millennia in the water Powers of civilisation do not decay Many are still lying at the bottom Burning to build new glories another day. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
black
IT TAKES A NEIGHBOURHOOD
I like them both The two sides of Black The one that is woke And the one that looks back I like both of them The two sides of Black The one full of flame And the one that’s laid back I like the Black that plays I like the Black that fights I like the Black that prays I like the Black that delights I like the Black that segregates I like the Black that integrates I like the Black that separates I like the Black that tolerates It’s all Black and it’s all good It takes a village and a neighbourhood. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
EASY PREY
You call yourself, proudly, a man, Fiercely, loudly, a Black man! Prey. Easy prey. You are easy prey. Because you stand alone Because you mourn on your own Because you don’t show your brother Just how much you silently suffer Because you compete against each other In envy instead of bonding together Under the attacks of all those Who consider you their subhuman foes. Prey. Easy prey. You are easy prey. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
HOLIDAY IMAGES FROM AFRICA
Why is it that many White people, when they go to Africa, one of the points on their checklist is to go to an orphanage or a Hospital or a village school and take pictures of themselves carrying little Black children and surrounded by little African children?
If I were to come to Europe and go to an orphanage or a hospital or a village school and take and post on social media pictures of myself carrying and surrounded by little White children to whom I have no close personal connection and whose parents or guardians don‘t even know me, I would be accused of many things.
Please, White people, stop instrumentalising Black African children for the purpose of your hypocritical self-staging as supposedly benevolent world saviours. Robbing them of their privacy and dignity, objectifying them, and using them as moral ornaments with which to decorate your souls on social media. They are human beings, they are minors, and they are somebody’s children and wards.
Even if you want to donate to an orphanage or help the under-privileged, you have no right to use it as an opportunity for a foto op and PR session. I’m sure some of you also donate anonymously to orphanages in Europe and America, but you don’t afterwards troop there to pose for pictures with the children to whose welfare you are contributing. You sense, and quite rightly so, that it would be undignifying towards those children. And undignifying towards you yourselves too. Well, the same applies to Black and African children too! And the same applies with regards to them.
Please stop using them as background deco and surround sound for the accolade-seeking self-images you wish to bring back with you from Africa as your holiday trophies.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
GET USED TO BLACK
Black is not a fad, and not a trend –
It was here first & it is here to stay ‘til the end.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
NIGERIA: SERVING TWO MASTERS
Nigeria, by and large, was conquered and colonised TWICE – by Islamic Arabic Imperialism and by Judeo-Christian Western Imperialism.
But when Nigeria fought for Independence, it only fought for Independence against Western Imperialism and not against Arab Imperialism.
That is why the soul of Nigeria has divided loyalties today. Many Nigerians who consider themselves free and independent today are only independent (partly) from Western Imperialism, and not from Arabian Imperialism which – like the green snake in the green grass – is deeper, stealthier and more inchoate and not bound into a concrete, easily dismantable State-form.
While Nigeria battled back right from independence with the consequences of this subtle lack-of-freedom, Western imperialism quietly returned in the form of neo-colonialism.
Until Nigeria – and indeed Black Africa – is politically, economically and ideologically free of both the WEST AND the EAST (Middle & Far East), it will never be able to develop. It will always remain a puppet on a string and a pawn in a game being played by others.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
TRAYVON
You’re walking on water
Don’t think it is land
The tide is about to turn
Your feet into sand
Signals sent out over the earth
Kill them before they grow
There is a protection Claws in our justice
For a darker tomorrow
Subliminal messages
Password more valid than passport
What is the colour of love?
Blindness is just in court
Mankind will destroy humanity
And claim to be its saviour
And cunning will mask hatred
And none shalt love thy neighbour.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
In Memory.
LOOKING FOR ART (A Duet)
There are days
Grey is my colour
My fist is an empty net
My loneliness is trapped within
My lost lines
There are nights
Black is my colour
My mind is full of melancholy
My heart remembers it’s broken
My hope gone
Blue is the island
An oasis of seeking shade
Shade of hue and colours somewhere
On the horizons of intuition
Beckoning
Yellow is the fire
A symbol of promised growth
Rays invisible yet warming
The seed pushing towards light
Determined
For in my every dark hour
Every colour is comfort
Every form is transformation
Spirit, never stop looking
For Art.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije and Dormis Aeternitas
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This Poem is a Duet I wrote together with Dormis Aeternitas, a wonderful poet.
Visit his blog to read more of his enchanting work.
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Picture: Section of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”
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MIX UP
White men complain
Of losing their women
Black women complain
Of losing their men
White women complain
Of losing their men
Asian men complain
Of losing their women…
From race to race
Place to place
Everyone is sure
Everyone is impure
I guess we’re all lost
I guess we’re all found
I guess we’re all free
I guess we’re all bound
I guess we all complain
I guess we’re all afraid
I guess we all know
How best to get laid.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BLUE
She told me the tongue
Is the instrument of the heart
Learn to use it well, for song
And touch, to part and to impart
I tell you this, she said
Because you make my tongue restless
Then I knew what she wanted
A drink of tenderness
Blue was that night
And underneath the mango tree
Me warm me hands in her fireside
She sang of honey
Yet, though she’s melting me, watching me
Still my admiration is voiceless, deadpan
Words of flattery would be
A waste of woman.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 