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𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗟𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗣𝗢𝗘𝗧𝗥𝗬
January 7, 2024 7:39 pm / Leave a comment
𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗡 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞 𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗞𝗦 𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗜𝗧𝗬, 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗗𝗢 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗗𝗢?
DISCLAIMER
I am not an employee of NAM (Nasjonalmuseet/ the National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design). I work at NAM on behalf of an outsourced service provider, in which I have full-time employment. This presentation today is one of several literary creative inspirations that I have so far gotten whilst performing my formal duties at NAM. The presentation is unsolicited, and it is done with no inherent ulterior motives. It is done and delivered with but the best of intentions, without fear or favour.
Neither NAM nor my employer can or must be directly nor indirectly associated with the thoughts, opinions, and sentiments I am going to express in this presentation. I alone am responsible for the contents herein. I hope, though, that the output shall be of a quality and standard that shall cause neither embarrassment nor disrepute for both NAM and my employer.
The inspirational moment, and its subsequent outcomes, i.e. poem, publication in a book, and the social media video recital here would have happened regardless of whether or not I worked at NAM. All that needed to happen was for my eyes to fall on the particular inspirational object. It could have been anywhere, at any time. It just happened to be at NAM, Oslo, on October 28th, 2022 this time around.
As I walk through, back and forth, round and around in my professional errands in the various public exhibition spaces in the museum, the vast variety of objects on display works my emotions and thoughts in phenomenal ways. Many a time I feel like I see myself floating in this boundaryless enclosure that is an intermingled environment of what I’ve gathered of ideas of heaven and hell. In this environment, the material and the conceptual are all merged into one new reality that defies human speech for description. The opposites as we know them on the earthly plane cancel out one another in this strange new reality. And it doesn’t matter.
For example, in this temporary but recurring new reality, I don’t see the environment as I do with my eyes distinguishing between normal light and darkness. The sensory organs don’t work in the conventional way here. When I expect to hear a sound in my head, as from observing a painting depicting fire, somehow silence claims its space. It’s in conflicting but harmonic moments like these that I get lost in time and space.
And, in silent thunderous flashes of light, clouds of inspiration engulf my thoughts with darkness. Through this haze, I get to sense words in either written or spoken forms. In this state of mind, I lack a background upon which to base my experience of these words that I hear in what I perceive as silent sound in stationary motion. This is how my writings come to be. Preserving my sanity, thereby. I appreciate art for what its charming beauty and its irresistible goriness do to ever kindle my creativity. A work of art has not moved me if my response to it does not inspire an expressive textual idea in my head.
Immersed in the writing process, I do not create writing ideas from nothing. My writing ideas are stimulated through my responses and reactions to my actual interactions with events and attributes of my environments at any one time. It is not always that the writing idea shall be manifest at all. It is one thing to have an inspiration, and it is another to bring the inspiration to life – the mood, time, and space have to be right. That means that my literary output so far is only the tip of the iceberg concerning how much more I shall potentially produce. Every day I can’t help but get several concrete inspirational moments stored in my creative database in my brain. Therefore, I work at the right place at the right time. I shall live to see my 1000th book published before I’m a hundred years old.
Every piece of poetry, essay, or novel that I write helps me to hold my feet on the ground. The writing process cleanses my soul; it elevates my passion for living. This is so because, when I write, I get lost in a realm of being in which asking existential questions and finding functional answers are the imperatives for survival. This is the realm in which, with text, I get to materialize for life my dreams, my hopes, and fears. I am eternally grateful for the privilege of working at NAM for what immense value the workspaces add to my creativity.
Currently, and until January 14th, 2024, NAM has a major exhibition of some of the works of Harriet Backer. The exhibition is called Every Atom is Colour. Whenever I’m in the magnificent exhibition hall, I get a sense of a warm, safe, homely feeling. This is reminiscent of the better part of my formative years whilst attending school in Lesotho, 1965-69. I feel and see so much of my late maternal grandmother’s aura throughout the space.
Harriet Backer gives me a reassuring, here-and-now sensation in my entire being. I see myself walking into a bright future standing still with time in Harriet Backer’s presence. This is much like seeing the visions of the kingdom of God that my grandmother used to tell me about. She used to say that I was a chosen child of God; when I’m grown up, I’d be king of my people. And, when I die, I’ll be headed to heaven, where I’ll sit on the right side of God, and live happily ever after. Amen!
I’m not quite ready to die yet. Heaven can wait.
I first met Harriet Backer in the northern spring of 2022, a few months before the official opening of NAM. Upon entering the room through its main entrance, I saw a portrait of a letter-reading girl hung up on the wall facing the entrance squarely from across the room. This was one of those love-at-first-sight moments that often make my heart sing throughout my body. The girl’s enthralling beauty reminded me of a girl that I once knew as a growing-up boy-to-man in South Africa in the early 1970s.
Each time I entered the room I’d daydream about the many, many love letters I’ve written in my time. The girl in the portrait is there but not there at the same time. I could bring her to life in my fantasies, but I could never have her in the flesh, yet I love her all the same. Hopeless love.
In the same manner, the girls I used to write letters to in many parts of the world were there in my fantasies as I sat down and wrote. The fantasies would get wilder tortuous during the replies waiting phases, which could be weeks to months in those pre-internet days. Upon receiving even only one reply after the long wait, I used to curse my fantasies for failing to bring in the flesh these girls home to me. But I kept hoping that one day, it would happen. I’m keeping the dream of love alive in memories of some of the girls now dead.
I’ve met numerous other new girls since. We don’t write letters these days. Social media and other modern communication platforms do the trick. But it’s not the same. I guess that’s how it took about six months before the poem inspired by the letter-reading girl came forth.
One day, as I stepped into, the Harriet Backer room, I marvelled at the especially silently exuberant nonchalance of my beloved letter girl on that particular day. Thinking that I saw the painting moving like it was being pushed towards the door, I feared she was shutting me out for once. At the same time, I felt welcome as I confirmed that the painting was attached fast to its regular spot.
I realized, then, that I hadn’t before thought about what the message in the letter could have been and from whom it may have come. I also realized that I had never gotten to look into her eyes since they were so fixed on the letter in her hands. Perhaps I should write her a letter, I thought. At that moment, then, I suddenly heard poetic words singing in my head; the poem Love Letter became the real-world outcome.
Before I read the poem, I have to make another disclaimer as I, in my words, describe what art is:
DISCLAIMER 2
I do not have any academic or professional training in art. My articulation of what art is a function of my layman’s instinctual appreciation of things beautiful against the ugly; both in the figurative and abstract manifestations as my senses perceive it in any given situation and space, at any given time. All I know is how to think and write, and write and think. Art is what I feel. If I feel it, I can think it. If I think it, I can write it. Writing is my art, my artistic expression. Writing is what I do; all attributable to my academic training.
WORKPLACE OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS
People do from time to time visit museums of all kinds for all kinds of recreational, educational, and research reasons. I work at Norway’s Nasjonalmuseet. The institution has proved to be an awesome literary creative’s wet dream for me as an author and poet. I get at least one goosebumps moment each day I am at work. Tens of thousands of works of art are on display throughout the eighty-nine exhibition spaces at the museum. In all their widely variable expressive forms, these artworks move me in a way that ever fills me with love and joy like I have never experienced before. Working here is a privilege I am much grateful for.
At different points in all the exhibition spaces in the museum, there are rest stations comprising benches upon extensions of which are placed, amongst other items, wooden playing cards. The cards have various quizzes and games for the guests to have a go at as they sit and rest. I, together with Ole, a fine but ever condescending colleague young enough to be my grandson, happened to have been engaged in a discussion about various aspects of the museum when we approached one such station. Ole then unexpectedly reached out and randomly pulled out a card from the bench extension. It turned out to be a quiz card with the question: ‘What is Art?’; creating a gotcha moment that I saw Ole revelling in.
Talking about Ole’s gotcha moment, this was yet another one of those moments in which a person of European extraction comes to me with the pre-conditioned notion that Black people are not cultivated enough to appreciate the finer aspects of European culture. Anyhow, my immediate response in this case was, “Art is the capturing of an experiential moment in time and space in order to, perhaps, tell a story about that experience in the future. This capture can be in any form or medium according to the proclivities and talents of the artist.”
Ole, “I hear you. But you will have to elaborate more on all that you have just said!”
Seeing as we had to attend to each our respective duties at work then, I replied, “I shall write an essay for you, then. Deal?”
“Deal!”
My definition of art shall be both conceptual and functional. Conceptually, I know art when I perceive it. I do not have to be told. I do not have to be instructed. I know art when my senses register it. Regardless of the representational form, the sentimental response that I get from experiencing any manifestation of art that I consider as beautiful is a constant. Conversely, an unattractive, unpleasant artistic form as I experience it emotionally affects me in the same way relevant to it irrespective of the form or the representational style.
Whenever I read a storybook (or even write one) that I enjoy, my breathing rate slows down, the total bodily relaxation I get gives me a wonderful warm feeling all over; I get goosebumps, and my palms get warmer and moist. This kind of feeling brings me immense joy. The dreamy state it gets me into sends me into a fantasy world of all things possible. If I had been, for one reason or another, going through hard times, this state brings hope home; it fills me with a sweet sense of freedom. In this state, I am invincible. This is my subjective domain for defining what beautiful art is for me as my perceptive senses – eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose, intuition – register it, feed my hormonal system (feel-good hormones), and the latter instruct my nervous system to induce my being to act accordingly. Pure joy.
Whilst recognizing it for what it is, art that is repugnant to me is exactly that. If it makes me cringe, if it casts a shadow of pessimism over me, if it fills me with negative thoughts and associations, if it gives me a cold sweat, then it is bad art for me. There are times when I can see beauty in bad, ugly art, though. I think about the hands, or some other body parts, that created the work. Every hand shall tell its story according to its owner’s neuro-hormonal wiring and physical capabilities. One man’s apparent gory art may be another’s depiction of heaven. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Functionally, art is a conveyor of messages, a storyteller; a courier of generational narratives in humanity’s dances with nature and itself over time. Art can be an instrument of change. Art can repair the once broken. Art can inspire hope, faith, trust, and love. To the extent that art is a personal expression, art may speak for its creator. Art creators have the potential to make or break society. Ask God, man’s most divisive, master-of-carnage creation. God may have created man instead, her most complex work of art. The outcome is not any better.
Art is identity. Identity may be deception obscured in art. From the outset, art may be true by intent and purpose. But when human perception and interpretation of reality are as polychotomous as there are so many people on earth, art shall be true or fallacious as to the perceptive state
and cognitive capacity of the observer. Therein lies the mystique, the intrigue of art. Who am I? I am a man in love with art.
Art is some powerful stuff. Art is a human creative potential deserving to be handled with tender, loving care. At its best, art is an instrument of peace; art has the potential to stimulate reflection on the human condition. We rise, we fall; art captures all that. Art is beauty. Without beauty, life is not worth living.
Beauty moves humanity forward and higher on the scale of qualitative and quantitative improvements in life. It is not for nothing that nations of the world, interest organizations of all sorts and sizes, wealthy individuals, and many others invest heavily in the promotion, conservation, preservation, and storage of some of our most impactful of artworks over the epochs into the future. Art immortalizes human experience.
WHAT IS ART WORTH?
Your eyes see what they see. Your brains process your perceptions as to their inherent OS programming, i.e. the brain in concert with the hormonal system, which affects behaviour, ultimately influencing our decision or choice-making processes. Your expressive potential is manifest through your creative skills and particular materials and work tools preferences.
The expression of your observed reality or conjured fantasy isolated in your creative expression of choice shall, then, manifest the outcome we see as a work of art in its unique presentation that only you can tell it like it is. It’s up to the eye of the beholder to see or not to see the beauty, the function, and/or the worth of the work.
Simon Chilembo, December 29, 2023
I’ll write you a letter
Etch my words on paper
If it’s a crime to love you
Here is the evidence
My love for you
Is not
A judicial affair
For courtroom theatricals
For juries’ deliberations
For judges’ adjudications
I’ll etch portraits
Of my love for you
On canvas
Lock them in frames
We’ll want to meet again
The other side of
A thousand years ahead
Hanging on walls
In art museums
Of the world
For a billion eyes to see
I couldn’t hide
My love for you
For your eyes
That could never see
My love for you
In plain sight
END
©Simon Chilembo 28/10-2022
SIMON CHILEMBO
Oslo
Norway
January 07, 2024
𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐓?
April 7, 2023 10:16 pm / Leave a comment
𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐃𝐒𝐓 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒
DISCLAIMER
I do not have any academic nor professional training in art. My articulation of what art is a function of my layman’s instinctual appreciation of things beautiful against the ugly; both in the figurative and abstract manifestations as my senses perceive it in any given situation and space, at any given time. All I know is how to think and write, and write and think. Art is what I feel. If I feel it, I can think it. If I think it, I can write it. Writing is my art, my artistic expression. Writing is what I do; all attributable to my academic training.
WORKPLACE OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS
People do from time to time visit museums of all kinds for all kinds of recreational, educational, and research reasons. I work at Norway’s Nasjonalmuseet. The institution has proved to be an awesome literary creative’s wet dream for me as an author and poet. I get at least one goosebumps moment each day I am at work. Tens of thousands of works of art are on display throughout the eighty-nine exhibition spaces at the museum. In all their widely variable expressive forms, these artworks move me in a way that ever fills me with love and joy like I have never experienced before. Working here is a privilege I am much grateful for.
At different points in about all the exhibition spaces in the museum, there are rest stations comprising benches upon extensions of which are placed, amongst other items, wooden playing cards. The cards have various quizzes and games for the guests to have a go at as they sit and rest. I, together with Ole, a fine but ever condescending colleague young enough to be my grandson, happened to have been engaged in a discussion about various aspects of the museum when we approached one such station. Ole then unexpectedly reached out and randomly pulled out a card from the bench extension. It turned out to be a quiz card with the question: ‘What is Art?’; creating a gotcha moment that I saw Ole revelling in.
Talking about Ole’s gotcha moment, this was yet another one of those moments in which a person of European extraction comes to me with the pre-conditioned notion that Black people are not cultivated enough to appreciate the finer aspects of European culture. Anyhow, my immediate response, in this case, was, “Art is the capturing of an experiential moment in time and space in order to, perhaps, tell a story about that experience in the future. This capture can be in any form or medium according to the proclivities and talents of the artist.”
Ole, “I hear you. But you will have to elaborate more on all that you have just said!”
Seeing as we had to attend to each of our respective duties at work then, I replied, “I shall write an essay for you, then. Deal?”
“Deal!”
My definition of art shall be both conceptual and functional. Conceptually, I know art when I perceive it. I do not have to be told. I do not have to be instructed. I know art when my senses register it. Regardless of the representational form, the sentimental response that I get from experiencing any manifestation of art that I consider as beautiful is a constant. Conversely, an unattractive, unpleasant artistic form as I experience it emotionally affects me in the same way relevant to it irrespective of the form or the representational style.
Whenever I read a storybook (or even write one) that I enjoy, my breathing rate slows down, and the total bodily relaxation I get gives me a wonderful warm feeling all over; I get goosebumps, and my palms get warmer and moist. This kind of feeling brings me immense joy. The dreamy state it gets me into sends me into a fantasy world of all things possible. If I had been, for one reason or another, going through hard times, this state brings hope home; it fills me with a sweet sense of freedom. In this state, I am invincible. This is my subjective domain for defining what beautiful art is for me as my perceptive senses – eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose, intuition – register it, feed my hormonal system (feel-good hormones), and the latter instructing my nervous system to induce my being to act accordingly. Pure joy.
Whilst recognizing it for what it is, art that is repugnant to me is exactly that. If it makes me cringe, if it casts a shadow of pessimism over me, if it fills me with negative thoughts and associations, if it gives me a cold sweat, then it is bad art for me. There are times when I can see beauty in bad, ugly art, though. I think about the hands, or some other body parts, that created the work. Every hand shall tell its story according to its owner’s neuro-hormonal wiring and physical capabilities. One man’s apparent gory art may be another’s depiction of heaven. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Functionally, art is a conveyor of messages, a storyteller; a courier of generational narratives in humanity’s dances with nature and itself over time. Art can be an instrument of change. Art can repair the once broken. Art can inspire hope, faith, trust, and love. To the extent that art is a personal expression, art may speak for its creator. Art creators have the potential to make or break society. Ask God, man’s most divisive, master-of-carnage creation. God may have created man instead, her most complex work of art. The outcome is not any better.
Art is identity. Identity may be deception obscured in art. From the outset, art may be true by intent and purpose. But when human perception and interpretation of reality are as polychotomous as there are so many people on earth, art shall be true or fallacious as to the perceptive state and cognitive capacity of the observer. Therein lies the mystique, the intrigue of art. Who am I? I am a man in love with art.
Art is some powerful stuff. Art is a human creative potential deserving to be handled with tender, loving care. At its best, art is an instrument of peace; art has the potential to stimulate reflection on the human condition. We rise, we fall; art captures all that. Art is beauty. Without beauty, life is not worth living.
Beauty moves humanity forward and higher on the scale of qualitative and quantitative improvements in life. It is not for nothing that nations of the world, interest organizations of all sorts and sizes, wealthy individuals, and many others invest heavily in the promotion, conservation, preservation, and storage of some of our most impactful artworks over the epochs into the future. Art immortalizes human experience.

SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +92525032
April 07, 2023
RECOMMENDATION: Do you want to start writing own blog or website? Try WordPress!
Order, read, and be inspired by my latest and 9th book, 2nd poetry volume, MACHONA GRIT: Onslaught on Hate
𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒
January 10, 2023 2:40 am / Leave a comment
Living in the Now
I don’t live
On past glory
Past glory is what it is
Done
Dusted
Trashed
Buried
Closed chapters
Unforgettable
Crystalized
In my songs
History
For posterity
Education
And they
Detractors
Don’t understand
How it is
That I can rule today
Despite their throwing stones
At me everyday
They thought
They knew me
During my glory days
They can’t figure out
What’s become of me
When they expected
I’d vaporize
In lustreless
Post-glory days life today
Them
Pathetic dimwits
Thinking they are
My redeemers
When even
Jesus ain’t my cuppa tea
I sing Hallelujah
Only ‘cause
It is a beautiful song
Written by a human
Out of human experience
It kindles
My glory
Which comes from within
I’m smooth
I shine
I’m glass
Reinforced
Animosity might rattle me
I won’t crack
I won’t break
I’m black
I’m bold
I glitter
I’m diamond
I’m gold fortressed
Amalgamated
I’m steel
Stainless
Dirt don’t sit on me
Animosities bullet-proofed
Stones might hit me
They won’t punch holes
Through my skin
They won’t cause me harm
Hate war machines might strike me
I won’t crack
I won’t bend
I won’t fall
Glory days might come and go
True to form
Constant
My presence shall beam
Irrespective of time and space
Indomitable
When it is
My time
To grace
My space
Which is all times
All places I stand
Glory is my gift of life
For life
And they
Haters
Will never understand
How it is that
I fear not the future
Faithful to my fate
I have nothing to hide
Never had
I’m an open book
I walk my written words
That’s my nature
True to my name
Writing’s on the wall
Expository
Glory days
Spill the beans
In more ways than one
It’s only a matter of time
Bring it on
Alert
When they appear tomorrow
Them the haters
I’ll see them from afar
Fazed
They don’t know
They don’t know me
They’ve never known me
They’ll never know me
No love lost
Resilient
I live my life today
For future glory today
That’s life worth living today
Elixir of life
Any given day
Glory
Hallelujah
Praise be to
Immortality
Living hard
Living tough
Living strong
Today
Crush me if you dare
𝐄𝐍𝐃
©Simon Chilembo 30/11-2022
VREDE
September 27, 2021 1:19 am / Leave a comment
HVA VET JEG
Hva vet jeg
Jeg, som du sier
Er en primitiv mann
Preget av afrikanske jungle kultur
Der mennesker spiser hverandre
Er jeg da her
For å kannibalisere deg
Glemm det, mann, sier du
Her i riket ditt
Er det sivilisasjon som herjer
Her finnes det lys
Noe som er gunstig
For hjerneutvikling, sier du
Som om hudfargen min
Oppsluker lys hvor jeg kommer fra
Tvert i mot, egentlig
Det er ikke tilfeldig at
Dere skriver og leser bøker
Dere som er verdens
Kulturelle elite som nasjon
Noe som jeg ikke er
I stand til å forstå
Med min mindre utviklede jungelhjerne, mener du
Hva vet jeg
Om likestilling
Jeg, som du sier
Som forakter kvinnfolk
Jeg som er ute etter
Å overta ditt liv
For å utnytte deg
Som kjæledyret mitt
Glemm det, mann, sier du
I kvinnerettighetenes navn
Forlanger du at
Jeg skal respektere deg
Egentlig, insisterer du videre at
Jeg må beundre deg
Du er min gudinne
Jeg skal være slaven din
Slaveri tendens ligger jo i afrikaneres gener
Det burde jeg vite, påpeker du
I helvete, svarte fæn
Våken opp
La deg integrere i sivilisasjonens land
Kvitt deg med
Dine primitive vaner
Hør på meg
Gjør som jeg sier
Uten meg er du ferdig
Du er ingenting
Skal du leve lenge
Og nyte det gode livet
I dette verdens beste
Hviteste hvite land
Må du oppføre deg pent
Sitt i ro og fred
Under mine vinger
Din sjel er i mine hender
Vær ydmyk og snill, slaven min
Mamma skal ta godt vare på deg
Snille lille gutten min
Kjære slaven min
Jeg bjeffer
Du hopper
Avtale
Sier du
Si noe, da
Brøler du
Ikke bare stå der og glane
Gjør noe
Vil du slå meg
Vil du pule meg
Gjør ett eller annet
Eller dra til helvete
Hva gjør du nå
Stans
Du drar intet sted
Før jeg er ferdig med deg
Mann, du er stygg og dum
Skam til den kvinnen
Som måtte føde deg
Stakkers dame
Hvor uheldig kan en kvinne være
Ved å føde deg
Så stygg og dum som du er
Og du kaller henne for mor
Fy søren, er det mulig
Ikke kom nær meg
Bare ta et steg frem
Og da skal du oppleve
Hvordan vikingenes vrede flytter fjell
Og skaper tsunamier i verdenshavene …
(Continues in the book MACHONA POETRY: Rage and Slam in Tigersburg)
©Simon Chilembo 07/05-2021
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
Telephone: +4792525032
September 20, 2021
RECOMMENDATION: Do you want to start writing own blog or website? Try WordPress!
PS
Order, read, and be inspired by my latest book, Covid-19 and I: Killing Conspiracy Theories.
THE CHILDREN’S FUTURE
September 20, 2021 5:14 pm / Leave a comment
FATE TRAP
Hard to count
When now
They are in fixed
And then
Criss-crossing groups
Repeat
Again, and again
Here, there, everywhere
At the same time
In this closed space
Playing games of all sorts of
Running, jumping, falling, rolling
This moment orderly
The next erratic
Repeat
In the pandemonium
There’s laughter, there’s crying
Commands, corrections
Arguments
Singing
Whistling above
Melodies of birds
Claiming space here too
Dogs in this land don’t bark
Neither do cars hoot
Just as well
Balls bouncing off the ground, walls, and boards
Rattling chains
Shrieking voices
Squeaking metals
Waiting for glass to smash
Total chaos repeating itself
Day after day
Yet the world
Does not go under with these
Eighty-eight
Could be ninety-nine
Perhaps one-hundred-and-one-plus children here
The happiness
The love
The freedom
Reflecting harmony
In the chaos
The children splash
Into my eyes
I can’t quantify
Now, let’ see
This one child here’s going to be a doctor
When grown up
This one to the left, a pilot
To the right, an engineer
I see a firefighter over there
There are bankers and bakers as well
That one standing across the plaza is
An army general
A warrior type
Resonates with my spirit
Yonder is a rock star for sure
Those three under the oak tree over there
Shall be bus drivers
Taxi drivers
Aha, that one running towards the drivers
Is Prime Minister material
President or monarch where applicable
I can bet my last penny that
That lot over there shall be
Billionaire investors
Boss kids
From whom
A Godfather shall rise
Gangsters have been children too
I see an engineer here
A scientist there
A philosopher here
A preacher there
The future is bright
When grown up
These children here
Shall fix climate change troubles
No more natural catastrophes
These children here
Shall fix global economy issues
No more poverty
No more inequalities
They shall fix world peace troubles
No more wars
No more displaced people
Wading treacherous rivers
Running into hell fires
Drowning in the seas
Roasting in the deserts
Whilst
Fleeing tyranny
In their homelands
In vain
Seeking to taste
Heaven on earth
In other lands
Hope in every heartbeat
Before they die
As they die
Hope lives on
These children here
Are going to be the finest people ever
When grown up
They can be nothing
And everything
At the same time
The whole world is
Dancing under the children’s feet
With their hands
They shape
Future of the world
As to their dreams
In play today
But then again
At some time, some place
A fool shall emerge
From nowhere
Molest a child here
Molest a child there
Molest a child in places unknown
Forever change the child’s life trajectory
Destroy the future
Cease the child’s life
Erase the future
As do weapons of mass destruction
A volcano erupts
In my head
My primordial instincts take over
I could kill a man
Weren’t it for
The law of the land tying my hands
I better run
Get away from here
I never know
Who’s watching me …
(Continues in the book MACHONA POETRY: Rage and Slam in Tigersburg)
©Simon Chilembo 12/09-2021
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
Telephone: +4792525032
September 20, 2021
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PS
Order, read, and be inspired by my latest book, Covid-19 and I: Killing Conspiracy Theories.
MAKE ME WANT TO LOVE AGAIN – A Poem
April 12, 2021 12:07 am / 1 Comment on MAKE ME WANT TO LOVE AGAIN – A Poem
Keep Singing
Sing on
Baby
Make me
Want to love again
The way
You sing
Your voice
Ignites
Feelings
In my being
Taking me back
In time
To
An evening
In that phase
In time
When
A boy child
Transitions to
Man child
My first love
Took my hand
Urged me
To step along
With her
Into a passage
Where she’d
Teach me
How to know
When I love a woman
She embraced me
The maiden kiss
She gave me
Morphed me
Into
Adult lover man
In a young man’s shell
In an instant
Since then
Only
A certain
Kind of girl
A certain
Kind of woman
Only the
Boy child
In me
Instinctually recognizes
Moves me
Like you do
Keep on singing
I just can’t love
Just anything
Called a girl
Just anything
Called a woman
Mine is
Love discerning
Much as
Yours is
Melody exceptional
As I hear
Your song
Sing on
Baby
Make me
Want to love again
I want to love again
Because
Without love
I have
No reason for living
Without love
I go from day-to-day
Doing all
I have to do
Merely
Out of duty
Breathing
For life
With no passion
Like
Post-inferno ashes
On parched land
In depressed
Climatic states
Of being in nature
Waiting
For the storm
To wash away
Into oblivion
At sea
With
Tumultuous waters
Over barren earth
As I breathe
Dry air
Brittle
Incapacitating
My olfactory system
If I can’t
Sense
The odour of you
In the atmosphere
There can be no love
As to enliven
My immediacy
So
Sing on
Baby
Lubricate my soul
With your song nectar
Make me
Want to love again
As
I inhale deep
Hold my breath
Listen to my heart
Singing along
With you
Pumping
Your song sweetness
Into every cell
Composing the lover in me
In sync
With the love vibrations
You ooze
With your song
In this state
I feel in perfect health
I want to live for
I want to love
Only you
The boy child in me in love
Says to tell
That
For you
We shall live
We shall love
Until
Eternity
Comes knocking
On my door
Sing on
Baby
If it pleases you
Urge me
To step
Into your love corridors
If you love me too
For
I could never ever intrude
Into your love chambers
Yearning for you
Much as I do
Give me your song
Give me hope
Teach me
How you want me
To love you
Like you sing
Like you make love to your song
Only you make me
Want to love again
Sing on
Honey
Baby
END
©Simon Chilembo 05/04-2021
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
Telephone: +4792525032
April 12, 2021
RECOMMENDATION: Do you want to start writing own blog or website? Try WordPress!
PS
Order, read, and be inspired by my latest book, Covid-19 and I: Killing Conspiracy Theories.
“ALL LIVES MATTER” FUTILITY
July 18, 2020 1:09 am / 1 Comment on “ALL LIVES MATTER” FUTILITY
BLACK LIVES MATTER FOR ALL LIVES MATTER
All Lives Matter is a counter-statement that is essentially banal, denialist, deviatory, and destructive of a sovereign human rights cause that is enlivened in the pursuit of liberty, equality, and justice.
The human rights cause is imbedded in all-shades-Black-people’s perennial cry to breathe and live in a free world of abundance and human dignity without malicious pain and suffering at the hands of oppressive classes.
In a post-Enlightenment Western society developmental discourse, the oppressive classes grew out of the imperialistic capitalist expansion following the collapse of the European feudal system in the Middle Ages, and the resultant emergence of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century to the present.
Today we live in the age of AI (Artificial Intelligence) Revolution, where and when everything is possible
We’ve shown before that the growth of contemporary capitalism gave birth to the White Supremacy ideology that would subsequently turn the world into a living hell for Black people of the world.
It reached the height of tyranny through the colonization of Africa, and worst of all, the capture and deliverance of African people into slavery as inhuman as it could get in the Americas.
In what is today’s USA, the enslaved African people were broken to the core, dehumanizing them to levels of degradation beneath animals.
Beyond its hardly ever surprising predictably instantaneous White-centric defensive posture regularly blurted out not only to neutralize but trivialize a factual, unabated deep-seated transgenerational trauma of Black people, the statement All Lives Matter shall remain fallacious and petty to the extent that Black lives are in theory and practice systemically devalued, exploited, incapacitated, and are even still summarily publicly lynched with impunity in White Supremacists and other anti-Black racist worlds.
All Lives Matter is a dud, insulting statement to Black people when their lives don’t matter other than as slaves and cheap forms of entertainment sources.
All Lives Matter cannot hold as an absolute, universally applicable truth statement for as long as indignities and genocide are daily realities threatening the existence of the Aborigines and Maoris of Australia and New Zealand, respectively;
- the Rohingya people of Myanmar,
- the Romani people of Europe,
- the indigenous people of the Americas,
- the Yazidis of the Middle East,
- the Hazaras of Afghanistan,
- the Dalits of India, and
- the Uighurs of China to name but more people of the world the lives of whom some dominant classes have decided that they do not matter at all.
Black Lives Matter asserts Black people’s right to exist and live on the same terms as everyone else on earth. Indeed, driven by emotions anchored in science, the world ought to guarantee provision and access to basic human needs to all that live in it.
Unpredictable natural catastrophes challenges granted, people of the world’s dreams and hopes for longevity must be grounded on non-variable starting points.
All that society does to facilitate and sustain humanity’s aspirations for worthy longevity must not be at the expense of certain groups of people to the benefit of others.
Longevity presupposes unhindered capacity to self-perpetuate. As mammals, human beings self-perpetuate through sexual reproduction.
All things remaining equal, successful sexual reproduction shall bring forth another human being to the extent that both the male sperm and female egg carry genetic material containing the human genome. This is basic, high school level branch of science called Biology.
Both from survival adaptation imperatives in given times and spaces in nature, or induced genocidal intentions in power conflict areas across the world, genetic material mutates all the time. That fact notwithstanding, the human genome remains an infinite constant.
Constancy of the human genome construct defies all man-made human segregation tools based on physical features, origin, faith or creed. If and when human sperms and female eggs unite, either through direct sexual intercourse or in the test tube, fertilization takes place.
This forms the basis for the creation of a new life that, upon sexual maturity and all things remaining equal, will have the capacity to carry forward propagation of the species as a matter of course. That is scientifically verifiable miracles of nature at work.
Therefore, historical and current White Supremacist hate driven systemic killings of Black people all over the world is blatant display of the wilful intention to disrupt their capacity not only to reproduce themselves, but to contribute to the propagation of the species.
That way unilaterally declaring that Black people, Black lives are not worthy of being part of humanity on earth. Saying in no uncertain terms that, in fact, Black lives don’t matter.
If as science shows that Black people carry the human genome and can, as such, sexually reproduce only with other creatures carrying the same exact, non-changeable, specific human genome, then to trivialize Black Lives Matter is tantamount to asserting and operationalizing the statement that Black lives DON’T matter.
That in itself nullifies the ALL Lives Matter statement and its premises because Black Lives are an inherent constituent of the totality of all lives.
Black Lives Matter is an absolute philosophical and scientific postulate. If it is scientific, it is what it is; don’t go there.
If it is philosophical, then it can be, and it is a political voice. If it is a political voice, then it addresses itself to the subjective aspects of being human in organized society.
Organized society is there to serve and help humanity to harness itself and nature in order that all life – i.e. ALL people and nature – can thrive in a sustainable mutually beneficial symbiosis.
Black Lives Matter is not only a cry of frustration or raw anger. It is an awakening call, a pedagogic statement to the ignorant, myopic bigots and oppressors of the world. I dare say that Black Lives Matter is actually a pre-emptive statement against potential racial wars. Black Lives Matter is a cry for love and peaceful coexistence. Simply put: equality, fairness, and justice.
In all honesty, nobody wants a war. All level-headed people of the world whose ALL LIVES MATTER postulate is absolute and all-inclusive know that absolutely ALL the wars that are being fought in the world to this day will never bring lasting peace, neither love nor eventual harmonious coexistence.
Victory scored by one side today will be sustained by further application of war methods to contain the vanquished.
The fact is, no matter how long it takes, the defeated, whether justified or not, shall rise again. And, then, the war spiral goes on and on.
In our 21st Century Age of AI, anybody can wage a war; anybody can make, or have access to weapons of mass destruction. Oh, Brother, Brother, Brother, war is not the answer.
As a political, social change platform, BLACK LIVES MATTER is a call for dialogue: a conversation about how to move forward because we have reached a stalemate in the world today.
If we want to save the earth and prevent our own self-annihilation as humans, we really have no choice but to come together somehow to make the statement ALL LIVES MATTER a living “Oh, What a Wonderful World!” reality for all, here and now.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
July 07, 2020.
SYSTEMIC RACISM
July 8, 2020 1:21 pm / 4 Comments on SYSTEMIC RACISM
BLACK PEOPLE’S FIGMENT OF THE IMAGINATION?
If it is systemic it is broad based according to its time, space, and driving forces. It is enduring. It is transgenerational. It is endemic. It is prolific. It is a constant. It is predictable. It is routine. It is structured. It is devious: transparent one moment, subtle the next.
If it is systemic it is its own universe. It has its own domain of interconnectedness, its own self-preservation, self-perpetuation dynamics, its own fallacies contra conventional wisdom.
If it is systemic it is the noun system in applied form. The term system defines particular arrangements of processes, objects, and concepts designed to deliver set outcomes; precision assuming fulfilment of given pre-determined conceptual and operational parameters. A system represents methods to follow in order to achieve certain outcomes. A system may be natural or man-made.
If it is natural, a system may never fail to the extent that applicable natural laws remain constant. Man-made systems may never fail to the extent that they do not seek to defy the laws of nature.
Racism is a man-made system of thought and behaviour that promulgates and applies ideas that there is, by divine providence, a non-contestable unequal relationship amongst the diversity of ethnicities comprising the human race on earth.
Racism is a political power instrument. It’s a social control force exercised by elite classes to explain and justify their oppression of the weakened and broken for economic domination purposes. Racism as we know it in our times is an off-shoot from the growth of modern capitalism from the 16th Century onwards.
It functions on the irrational classification of human beings according to physical attributes, starting with skin colour and purported cognitive endowments differentiations in favour of dominant classes.
An arbitrary distinction was introduced to classify light-skinned people of Eurasian extraction as being of higher intelligence with the God-given right and power to dominate others of darker skin complexions.
According to racism postulates, the darker-skinned were meant to be at the permanent servitude of the light-skinned. This justified European colonial endeavours the world over, with Africa taking the brunt of it all through the ensuing slave trade that took multitudes of African people into plantation slavery in the Americas.
Racism appears in different forms all over the world. For purposes of this presentation I look at the Eurasian anti-Black racism. This is in view of the current state of global Black Lives Matter debates sparked by the horrific visuals of George Floyd’s heartless murder in Minneapolis, USA, on May 25, 2020.
Along the way to the Americas, millions of other African people perished at sea. As a total dehumanizing experience, colonialism and the Afro-American slave trade have left an indelible trauma in the psyche of African people in the continent and the Diaspora.
At the same time, the White Power movement that grew out of the Eurasian economic might class in North America continues to use the partly successful crushing of the Black African spirit as proof of their superiority.
Fragility of racism as a system starts already with the man-made divine providence principle. Devine providence has no basis in natural law precepts. It lacks consistency, therefore; opening itself to non-ending enquiry leading to infinite inconclusive findings. Doomed to failure in the long term.
Racism’ systematic application of manipulation and overt extreme violence as tools of oppression have persisted, hence systemic racism.
In the White Supremacy racism against the Black world context, systemic racism is the complete set of conceptual and practical tools devised to sustain the status quo of the racists’ unnatural dominance of the Black race in order to perpetuate the one-sided capitalistic exploitation of the subjugated.
The set of tools sustaining White Power systemic racism have long permeated the amoral fabric of Western society and its satellites the world over. Appearing in unique forms in the Middle East and Asia, the methods of subjugation of the downtrodden are the same, amongst others:
- Part to total disenfranchisement of the oppressed
- Limitation or total denial of access to education
- Limited access to wealth creation opportunities
- Sub-standard living conditions
- Sustenance of squalor through deliberate minimal to zero provision of social amenities
- Application of effective brutality against any real or perceived rebellion: police, military
- Development of a powerful propaganda machinery across society: educational system, culture and sport, media, faith, family
SYMBOLS: Monuments! - Devise a state machinery to ensure functionalities of all the above: bureaucracy – INSTITUTIONALIZE!
- Teach, reward, and protect agents of state machinery: impunity
Systemic racism is a living reality. It’s not a creation of novel minds. Neither can it be explained away with rhetoric. We use fine language and sophisticated wordcraft to describe it in order to demonstrate that we know well what we are talking about.
Through our articulation, we seek to give systemic racism a face so that those with eyes to see, with brains that think can have something tangible to relate themselves to as we invite them to step into our shoes to learn about our existential realities.
Systemic racism is a well-oiled machine of bigotry and ignorance. It therefore has to be addressed with superior intellectual firepower if we are going to eliminate it from the face of the earth.
In terms of application and experience, racism is a very personal trip. As an object of racism from birth in formerly officially White Supremacist Apartheid South Africa, I know racism when I see it; I know racism when I feel it. I can smell racism from afar.
My personal sensitivity to racism transcends the active or passive practitioner’s ethnicity. Racism comes in packages as colourfully diverse as the human race is. It’s only about degrees of application, and extents of actual or potential damage caused.
Given my background, it goes without saying that I know more about Eurocentric White Supremacist racism than any other form. And, that is my personal experience, and mine alone. Nothing, and no one else compares to that.
No one can define, no one has the right to want to define for me what racism is or what it is not. Doing so is in itself symptomatic of the oppressive, imperialistic nature of racism. At the individual level, application and experience of racism are relative modalities for the aggrieved.
Systemic racism is racism collectivized. Systemic racism steps over the individual and contaminates the group for eventual total domination, if not genocide at worst. In this case, racism is applied institutionally in one-size-fits-all formats.
Meaning that, for example, in the eyes and power tools dispensation of anti-Black White Supremacists’ worlds, when you are Black you are Black. It doesn’t matter how cultured or uncultured, enlightened or non-enlightened you are with regard to integration or non-integration into these worlds.
You may be a shining star highlighting values of White Supremacist ideology with pride and pomp. But, in the end, when you are Black, you are Black: arbitrarily designated as inherently inferior, primitive, savage, divinely cursed to slave for the Whiteman. It’s just the way it is with systemic racism.
It makes sense, therefore, that, to be effective and produce lasting effects, the anti-racism struggle targets systemic racism states institutions, their functionaries, and their symbols.
Because the systemic racism state is ever so strong and intrinsically inclined to apply immediate brutal force to quell dissent, it’s not strange that carnage and destruction to property shall often accompany uprisings against the system. Contemporary and historical examples of that abound in the USA, South Africa, and several Latin American countries.
In cases of extreme indiscriminate systemic racism state violence against the people as we’ve witnessed in the USA lately, the people’s rage will be such that they’ll even target their destructive energy towards “their own innocent Black-owned businesses”.
Self-harm as a form of expressing frustration, hopelessness against overly strong, insensitive forces resistant to change is called self-flagellation in the Bible, the book of systemic racism proponents, even if they hold and read the holy book upside-down.
Manifestations of the socio-economic collapse of post-colonial, post-slavery societies cannot be understood detached from the overall destructive consequences of White Supremacist systemic racism consequences.
Apparent degeneration of moral and ethical values as evidenced through rampant corruption, sexual abuse and violence against children and women as we see across the world today has a direct link to systemic racism practices over the years.
Racism as relentlessly pushed on by White Supremacists has created monsters in its victims.
Violence begets violence. Those who live by the sword die and promote death by the sword. Is this really the kind of world we want to live in in the 21st Century?
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
June 30, 2020
FREEDOM: To Die or Not To Die For
June 8, 2020 1:27 am / Leave a comment
FREEDOM
To Die or Not to Die For
When I’m dead
I’m dead
Me dead
My life
As I lived it
The joys
It gave me
The sweet life
Of
Wines and roses
The trials and tribulations
It subjected me to
The sour life
Of
Swords and sores
Don’t matter no more
Heaven and hell
Are
Illusions
For
The after life
Therefore
In the living
I worry
But little about them
I have
This vision
That
I shall die as I lived
A spirit
Hooked on freedom
Freedom taught me that
It is like the air
It is love
Love is the
Axis
Around which
The earth rotates
Without air
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
I die
I die
Earth axis vanishes
All love lost
Earth rotation stops
All hell breaks loose
Deprivation
Of freedom
Strangles me
Constricts my lungs
Inflames my sinuses
I can’t breathe?
I don’t die?
I panic
I go berserk
I go berserk
I feel no pain
Fear evaporates from my body
I am mad
Like a
Médecin sans frontières
Deprivation
Of freedom
Makes the
Line between life and death
Very thin
Every which way
I’m heard
I’m seen
If I die
I do so
For the living
To breathe
They’ll call my action
The ultimate sacrifice
If I live
I won’t celebrate
Until
I can shout out
Freedom
From the depth of my lungs
I’ll call that pure joy
In the name of freedom
A man defied
Military tanks in
Tiananmen Square …
(Continued in the book Covid-19 and I: Killing Conspiracy Theories)
END
©Simon Chilembo, 07/ 06-2020
Dedicated to anti-racism protests world-wide. George Floyd murder legacy larger than life. Change has to happen. Freedom sure does not come cheap – #letusbreathe
NB: I do not trivialize the seriousness of Coronavirusdisease (COVID-19) with this piece. The pandemic deserves the highest respect: we must all follow expert advice from doctors, scientists, and relevant multilateral and state health authorities wherever we are in the world.
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
Tel.: +4792525032
June 07, 2020
PLANT KNEE ON NECK – A Poem
June 2, 2020 1:49 am / Leave a comment
PLANT A KNEE
PLANT A KNEE
You don’t kick
A man
That’s already down
Hands locked
In his back
Chest down
Belly loose
Genitalia nowhere to hide
Prayer
Out of the question
I can’t kneel!
If he is Black
You wanna kill him slow
In Minnesota
On Africa Freedom Day
May 25
Plant your knee
In his neck
I can’t breathe!
Smirk to the world
In front of
2020
Google Earth
Eyes wide open
What can anybody
Do to you
You are white
You are police
You are the power
You breathe
The illusion that
This world is yours
Yet
In your mind’s eye
You fear
To see
Black light
You hallucinate
That
Black depowers
Your world
If your eyes
Could see
Light in black
You’d see
Red on the ground
That is black blood
Red as yours
If your eyes
Could see
Light in
Black eyes dying
You’d see
Your fate
The day
Black Power
Loses sight
Of the soil
The day
Black Power
Sees no point
To rest the knee
Eyes down
Hands clasped
Not in fear
But in humble protest
Against your opaque eyes
Ruled by
Blind thirst for
Black blood
Smelling red iron
Like your blood does
You’re vampire
You ought to know better
Black eyes
Dying today
See
A mind switch
Tomorrow
You just played
Your last trump card
Trump Tower just Blackened
Pit-black energy
Of masterminds of
American Gangster
Cambodian Killing Fields
Hotel Rwanda
Movie’ story lines origins
Liberian civil wars
The Biafra war
The Congo-Zaire-DRC
Rivers of blood
Zimbabwean Gukurahundi
Is coming for you
Vengeance is calling
And then
There goes
The world under
Collapsing in its own
Terrestrial black hole
What are you
Gonna do now
Pervert
Put your hand
In your pants
Rub your dick
For the last time
Coming soon
Is
Your demise
END
©Simon Chilembo, 01/ 06- 2020
In memory of George Floyd, MHSRIP
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
Tel.: +4792525032
June 01, 2020










