Ich kämpfe für eine Welt
die ich mir noch nicht vorstellen kann;
und alles, was ich als Vorlage habe,
ist eine Empfindung,
die mein Verstand nicht deuten kann.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Im Jahrzehnt der Deutschen Dichtung
blind
THE OTHER WAY
Obstacles open the way. The other way.
When they come your way
They have not come to block your way,
But to force you to look the other way
And see another, better, righter, deeper way
And learn to see a way where there is no way.
They have come to show you the way.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
BLIND
In der Zukunft angekommen
Strassenschilder verschwommen
Heißersehntes wirkt befremdlich
Ist es dunkel oder bin ich blind geworden?
Gestern sah ich einen anderen Morgen
Nun flattr’ ich verwirrt, Fledermaus ohne Echo
Ohne Spiegel bist Du nackt
Nur ein Radar bleibt mir noch intakt:
Erinnerung der Überzeugung.
Und unterdessen
Nie wieder zu vergessen:
Empfindung.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
NO MATTER WHAT
What if Rosa Parks had got up from her seat?
What if Churchill had agreed to negotiate with Hitler?
Sometimes even when you are down
Still you must refuse to bow down.
What if Dundee had not pushed out Clay in Round 5 against Liston?
What if Ali had kept his belt and gone to Vietnam?
Sometimes you have to face your opponent blindfolded, because that moment is your destiny and you just have to fight on.
To resist evil, no matter what
To do the right thing, no matter what
To stand to your conviction, no matter what
To keep on fighting, no matter what
A thousand years are as one day
And the way seems to last forever
Sometimes, like now, I feel so strange to myself
As if I were someone else
Somewhere else far far away
Awakening inside me
And, even though I don’t understand it
I just have to let it continue
To take over me,
No matter what.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
URGE
I don’t know where I’m going with this
I am a footprint in the dark night
That keeps repeating itself
Endlessly, yet it’s going somewhere
It is a mystery to me why I ask
You to trust me, although I know
Neither the way nor the goal –
I know only the stubborn Urge in me.
And I know you are a part of this Urge
When it hurts you, it hurts me
I don’t know where I’m going with it
All I know is you’re coming with me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
YOUTH
Happiness was close
Always close
A thought away
A recognition away
But that was always too far
For a young mind blinded
By too many choices
Too many voices.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
EVERYONE
Everyone is a little deaf
To some other person
A little blind
To some very important lesson
A little dumb
And someone’s fool
And a little numb
And sometimes a little too cool.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
PASSING LOOK
A blind man walked into the busy tram
His cane tapped audibly on the wall
Of many a closed mind –
There was an unsteady way he shuffled about
Stumbled, and then clutched the railing
Without letting go of his staff, still swaying
In his other hand three polyethylene bags
Full of his grocery – I tried but
Could not read the look on his calm face.
I hate it when the conversations die,
He must be thinking, I’m thinking
As the whole tram stared at him
But he could not stare back.
Two stops later, he gingerly tapped his way
Out of the tram, his face calm, illegible.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
LOOK AGAIN
And then you will see
That blind people see
The things that are invisible
To you and to me
And then you will hear
What the deaf loudly hear
When silence is all
That you and I hear
And then you will understand
That children understand
To store deep in their memory
Things they don’t yet understand
When a moment full of pain
Opens up your heart again
And you learn to look again
And see again, and hear again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I SAW A TEMPTER
I heard a whisper
Which made more sense than it could have
And less sense than
It did
I felt a touch
Which was more intimate than it could have been
And less intimate than
It was
I met a stranger
Who looked more familiar than he should have
And less familiar than
He did
I perceived an odour
Which smelled nicer than it must have
And fouler than
It could
And then I saw a tempter
Who seemed exactly like I knew
A tempter ought not to be
Yet I knew it was temptation
Because it never answered my smile
Not the smile you see on my face
But the smile
That lives, always silent, in my heart
And the tempter
Does not answer this smile
Because how can you answer
What you don’t hear?
The silent smile who waits so gentle
Resides in everybody’s heart,
And anything that answers not my smile
Is not mine.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 