Sun-burnished
The sea slit
The morning lit up
Furnished my wit
The varnished mirror beneath me crawls
And over-yonder my sun it calls
Back tarnished memory bit by bit.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
childhood
ONCE WE WERE LIGHT
Once we were light
But the world weighed us down
Drowned out our cry of resistance
And put a bandage over our eyes
A desperate cry for help
Before we fell silent
And started to look silently at our children
The way once our parents looked at us
Now we know what they were thinking:
Retain your magic! Retain your lightness!
Even as they said to us worriedly:
You have to learn to fit into the system –
Knowing it was not the way
But knowing no other way
Or knowing it but not having the heart
To push us off the cliff –
Because not everybody grows wings
When falling through the gap.
The generation gap.
Now we watch our children worriedly
Wanting them to become like us
And wanting them to stay themselves too.
Once we were light
But the world weighed us down.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
AN EARLY RECOGNITION ON RESISTANCE
When I was a little boy – 6 or 7 – I watched a film on the Holocaust, in the sitting room with my parents. One question nagged at me then: why did they follow so quietly and obediently to their own deaths? Why did they not resist?
That question has since then detached itself from that film and that story and has followed me everywhere in life to this day, in many forms and contexts. In truth it was not a question – it was a Resolution.
Always resist.
Never give up, unjustly, what belongs to you, and is valuable to you, without a fight. It’s either you win, or you lose with pride.
All that’s left is for you to decide what your valuable possessions are.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
YOUNG AND OLD
Suffer not the young with belief in their ignorance
Thinking only the old can with wisdom be soaked
Watch: and see kids give to hidden truths substance
For what is a child but an adult cloaked
And seek not in the old for the seat of all staleness
Sure that, with youth passed, all vigour is lost
Look past the frame at a quicker, higher freshness
For what is an adult but a child unveiled
The child is the parent of the out-born adult
The adult is the parent of the in-born child
For up looks the earthling and up looks the moonling
And each sees nothing but the other in the skies
So suffer not greatness with the label of complexity
Nor suffer ordinariness with the verdict of the rejected
For where the great and the ordinary meet, simplicity
Is born, adult and child unite, and Perfection is reflected.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
LIFE COMES IN CHAPTERS
Kidnapped
Is there still hope for me?
The sun sets sadly as slowly as he can
By the last light of day
Find a way
Did you see the baby that was stolen?
Did you see the boy that was broken?
However hard you look, you will see
No resemblance at all between them and
The man now woken, now walking.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
CONSTANT CRY
He lived with us very briefly
When I was still a child
My father’s elder brother
When we prayed before our meals
And made the sign of the cross
He teased us, Protestants, about having gone Catholic
When he shaved in the morning
He explained to us the mysterious science
Of shaving stick, cream and blade
Other than that he didn’t talk much
A quiet quiet quiet man
Hurt no-one, thoughtfully kept to himself
Very different from the others
Never preached, never argued, never moralised
Never scolded, just silently observed
Three decades have passed
Rarely our paths ever crossed again
A short Hello each time, nothing more
I’m still trying to understand
The pain I’ve felt all morning today
Since I heard of Uncle Joe’s death
It doesn’t make sense
Someone I hardly knew
Just a few childhood memories
Just a few memories
That remind me of a time
Rich in memories and childlike insight
And a few memories
Of a quiet adult who never found a voice
In a culture of big egos, loud voices and aggression
His silence was louder, calmer, more lasting
So deep that only his death
Would open the deep wound of memory in my heart
His middle name was Ahamefula
Meaning “May my name not get lost” –
No, dear Uncle, it will not.
In loving memory of
Joseph Ahamefula Chukwumerije
1935 – 2013
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE WAY OF THE DRAGON
What was strange to others, was ordinary to us. When other kids went for children’s parties, we went for training and competition in martial arts and swimming. That was our father’s way – and it was the only way we knew; and looking back now, God bless that man. He was just unapologetically himself. He gave us a different world in which to live because it was the only world he was convinced of. A world of discipline, simplicity, hardwork, scholarship, modesty, frugality, brotherhood and fraternity. This is the root of our bond today – my siblings and I.
The most horrible thing that can happen to any person, to any family, to any society, is to think that there is something wrong in being different. For, then, there will neither be change nor progress. Just be yourself, even if it is different – nay, especially if it is different. Earth thrives on diversity. And diversity is only guaranteed when each person has the courage to be himself/herself. Thus, courage is the protector of our future as a human species. People, BE BRAVE.
Our father wanted to strengthen bravery in us, so he threw us into the martial arts, where you are alone in the ring and only your own fearlessness will see you through – and, win or lose, will cement your character and your legend. Just fight fearlessly. That was his message: Let fearlessness be your blood; that is all I ask of you. Win or lose, please my child just fight to the end.
When we turned it against him, though, it caught him unawares. Maybe he unconsciously hoped everybody was burning to be a public servant, or a socialist, and things like that, like himself. But I just wanted to be myself, to answer the call of life in another context – and he had taught me the courage to do so. But myself, at least in that period, was everything different from what he wanted for and from me. The irony and riddle of doing what is expected of you and thereby going against what is expected of you. The split was unpreventable, unavoidable and – for many decades it seemed – unhealable.
But Time, that great Mender, was Merciful. And Love pushed its stubborn head through and I will forever be grateful for the three beautiful years we had until he died.
Well, what on earth is this life all about? Who really knows? Is it politics? – Not everyone can be a politician. Is it the professions? – Not everyone can pursue one. Is it family? – Not everyone will make one. Is it ideology? – Not everyone will feel inclined to one. So what on earth is this earthlife all about?
In the end, it is simply whatever is in you that has to come out of you. And all you need to do, to make that happen, is simply to BE BRAVE. Brave enough to follow your innermost voice, no matter what!
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
PLAYGROUNDS
There is evil in the air
It chokes your breath in unexpected places
A playground, full of hard adult eyes
Watching, and avoiding, each other
While playing children loudly try
To shout the intruders merrily out –
One by one each parent
Picks up its child and hurries home
Away from this place
And no-one can say really why
The world became like this
Or when. It’s the future, and we’re there.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
SHE WAS A WEIGHTLIFTER
She was a weightlifter
They found it unseemly
But she was a shape-shifter
Their disdain was a lighter burden to bear
Than her fate.
Slum lady. Carried mud and bricks
Bore stones and sticks
Firewood, rusted water in weeping baskets
The stretch marks of impatient thirsty men
Bunched up her muscles.
Owned by all, never owned a thing
The madams’ slaps, the masters’ secrets
Nothing was too heavy a load to carry
To snatch, to clean, to jerk off –
Each jerk. Very ordinary.
Today, when she steps out unto the mat
Under the lights, there you see
Sunset in one eye, sunrise in the other –
It’s not heavy weights she’s lifting
She’s carrying hope.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BABY
He’s lying in the midst of his toys
And what language do they speak
To one another? They seem to understand
Each other. It’s his smile
That makes me strong.
I’m glad he can’t interpret my frown
When I look out of the window
Into the world, into the times –
Yes I’m glad for him
Let him store happiness in his heart today.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije..
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 