swallow that pride
step aside
that narrow heart, it is a road
open it wide
lei in that sunshine
look out the window
that thing out there that makes you
feel so good, it is light
and you’ve got it in your eyes
sometimes, locked away
i espy the large grey cloud
i understand that you are proud
is it so hard to let go?
to let those feelings show?
guess it must really be hard or
you would have done it long ago –
i see it in your eyes.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
“Keep chipping away at that block
Keep clipping away at that rock
Keep knocking on and breaking that stone
Keep striking at and cracking that bone
It is their faith, their pride, their hope and strength
It is the very foundation of their self-confidence
So just keep hammering steadily away at it until
They lose every belief in themselves and their will.”
Now if you’re reading this and know what I mean,
Stand up and holler at your foes seen and unseen:
“I can’t be beaten! I can’t be stopped! Because I’ve seen through you
And I’ve seen through me, and I’m the stronger of the two!
Break me down and I’ll come back twice as strong
You don’t know my foundation, so you can’t kill my song.”
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Originally I used to cover my face
I was new to the street
A freshly fallen angel –
Would old friends pass this way
And recognise me? Old colleagues?
Old neighbours with whom I shared
A beer and a philosophical hour
Reflecting on the vicissitudes of life
The changing destinies of human lives
Society, politics, the role of science in
Religion, male jokes about women
And feeling entitled to be fortunate.
Will they recognise me now, when
They pass this way and hurry past the
Wretched beggar on the street corner
Maybe throw him a coin but avoid his intrusive eyes?
Opposites don’t match, is their marching song
Did they recognise me in me?
But I don’t avoid their eyes anymore
The eyes of my yesterday
Not anymore
Not anymore.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
His pride is on sale
And his shame
And on his broad frame
You can see him bearing his fate
With a brave face on display
Seventy years of age
All his fears have come of age
His hopes, dreams, plans, crumbled
But now he’s picked himself up again
And sits at the south train station
Easel, paint-brushes, stool, low table
But he holds his head up high
Give him a smile and a coin
And he’ll paint a portrait of you
That will stand the test of time
He: You speak good german
I: Can I write something about you?
He: Yes, but no names please. I
Have a granddaughter in Darmstadt, who
Doesn’t know what I do to survive.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
He threw all the standard colourful
Discriminatory bigot remarks and innuendo
At me, then stepped back with a smirk
And waited to see it shame and hurt me
I knew this one had run out of arguments
And was fishing for the killer-blow
So I let it pass by without contact or impact
And leaned back and watched it confuse and hurt him
Some lines of attack grow old and stale
But some people just don’t get it
I speak back when speaking back will hurt you
And I ignore it when ignoring it will hurt you
Once upon a time, a man was humiliated
With fear and the theft of his dignity
But before he died, he whispered to me – You
Are my victory. Let my history be a lesson to you
Never go down without a fight. Never beg
For mercy when the killer points his gun
If they’re fair to you, be fair to them
But if they hurt you unprovoked – always always always
Somewhere
Someday
Somehow
Hurt them back.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Basically to do with respect – or the lack of it. A disrespect that has its roots in an unexamined, unquestioned presumption which a person has grown up with from childhood.
The presumption becomes the basis for all further interactions with and reflections upon the people or places to which the presumption applies. This presumption forms the bedrock of the basic attitudes the person develops towards the object of consideration. It stands like a wall in the face of a reappraisal of the people, object, situation or place; it is wielded as a weapon, held up as a shield in one’s dealings with them.
A common tendency towards lethargy might then prevent one from examining the presumption, which may also be called a prejudice. To examine the prejudice means facing the danger of encountering and acknowledging its incorrectness or partial incorrectness, and taking the trouble to build up a new view of and relationship with the discriminated – and thus making an about-face.
So it becomes a matter of pride. And, passed on from generation to generation, it will stand through the centuries like the Rock of Gibraltar, and no-one will know its beginning anymore.
Pride is a drug. It offers you comfort and succour, with gentle paws and steely claws that entrap what they embrace.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 