humanity

HAPPINESS, HONESTY AND IMPERFECTION

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

They said, you’re silent, and when you speak, you don’t speak of the things we know you know, the things you once spoke about. You don’t preach, you don’t teach, you don’t educate, elucidate or inform.

I said I have seen it all and it’s all an illusion. Never follow high-sounding words; they always hide a lie somewhere. All I want is just to be happy.

And I said, keep searching and searching until you find the hypocrite within you; and when you have looked each other in the eye, you will learn to recognize him or her also in the people, the words and the works around you. It’s very easy to be deep and profound. It’s much more difficult to be honestly imperfect.

If you want to be happy, you can’t skip the first step. It is also the last step: honest imperfection. Leave the wise words to the teachers. You, just be happy. That’s the only thing left that I still honestly care about. The rest is just a waste of precious time at best, deception of self and others at worst.

A funny thing happened: this morning I heard a saxophone playing and it gave me more than all the wise moving words in this world ever could or did. It sang the melody of all my sins, all my hopes, all my regrets, all my joys, all the humanity within me; and in the end I knew, it is true: the inner voice is the real you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SUNRISE AT WORLD’S END

~ Che ~ 6 Comments

Wait, morning wind
Wait for my awakening
For I bring a sun

Today shall be another day
Of the same old depressing news
Of hatred, xenophobia, corruption and wars

If I didn’t have this sunlight
Rising daily in my soul
I would think the world were ending

Now my sun is risen
Now rise too, my morning wind
For the old world is ending.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SILENCE WILL ROLL INTO SILENCE

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Silence will roll into silence
When your heart, for miles,
Lonely, clothed in the essence
Of sorrow shed in every sense
But one…,
Arises before your countenance
And, despite sorrow, smiles –
Fresh Food for your sustenance,
Fresh impetus for the long distance
You run…

Do you hear the rolling silence?
If you listen and listen hard
To Silence, the deeper bard;
Just listen, listen in hard…
Do you hear the rolling silence?

Silence will roll into silence
When the pain in you
Has crossed the line into convalescence
And the Horizon’s in view.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SCANDALOUS

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It is love.

You cannot
Mathematize it.

It will
Mesmerize
Scandalize
Legalize
Illegalize

And always leave Questions
Behind.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

ACHE

~ Che ~ 4 Comments

There is in me a longing
For a place
A longing which no place on earth
Can satisfy
Because I long for Home –

There is in me a yearning
For a love
A yearning which no human love
Can satisfy
Because I yearn for the Light –

But, on the other side of
The mountain peak
There is a woman to whom my
Heart belongs…
But there she is, beyond my reach
Just a tear away –

But I do not know how to cry.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SLIPPERY

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I have seen
That Evil
Is deep

It has silenced me
For where it nests
Is the noiseless depth
Pay no attention to my words

They are a distraction
If you want to hear my message
Listen to my silence
My words will show you the way into my silence
Where I talk of treachery no words can describe.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BRINK

~ Che ~ 3 Comments

The world is changing under your watch
There is hatred abroad, fear is at home
Never was it easier to manipulate the future
Crowds of boomerangs are rushing out of the past
Back to the present

When events take this turn, sharply
When all the resentments flower
When cultivated prejudices become seasoned culture
All that’s needed is a reason, a trigger, a spark
There is no hiding place

Everyone has got a grudge to prove
The dark hearts will plunge the world into chaos
And watch the good people tear themselves to pieces
– Who will rise above their shadow
And solve a paradox?

Everybody has been aching for the final conflict
Woe betide us
When it finally comes upon us.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MASKING MASKS

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What you see is but a mask, not a face, not the true face, but a mask, a facade, masking the first mask, the true mask which once upon a time was the face of a human soul. But now it’s a mask, the real mask, masking nothing again but emptiness. The mask becomes the life, the life becomes the mask, masking everything, but unable to mask our emptiness.

So when you finally succeed in unmasking one, it would do you good to bear in mind that the face you discover underneath is again nothing but another mask. And you keep unmasking them, one mask after another, one lost dream after another, one tomb after another.. and all you see are masks, masking masks, round and round the mulberry bush. And when you finally begin to ponder and wonder: But where then is the human, the wearer of all these masks? Where are we? What are the masks hiding, then, if all we encounter are masks?…

Then, dear friend, you must understand that the ugliest of all these masks is now the human being himself, and what we are hiding is the fact that we have lost our true face forever.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

IF THERE BE

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If there be a she
Where is she?
If there was a she
Where was she?

If there be a he
Which is he?
If there was a he
When was he?

If there be a we
What are we?
If there was a we
Wherefore were we?

If there be an I
Why am I?

If there is goodness in the human race
If there is love in the human heart
If there is hope in the human being
Why are we still not there
Where we once were
When we had goodness and love and hope
In our hearts
On our tongues
And as the work of our hands…?

If I have a friend
Please help me.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORLD AROUND YOU?

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Music made me
A bird saved me
A smile undid me
A woman slew me
A friend betrayed me
And I dug myself out of the Grave.

A wound bled me
A sword healed me
A dream baffled me
A heart became me… became I…
A Call reached me
Here, there and everywhere –

Now, tell me
If you understand humanity yet?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.