Your time will always pass
And it will pass at a time
Least convenient to you
Just as it came at a time
Not quite expected by you
And lasted for a length of time
Unappreciated by you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Of Desire
YOU SAID
You said you were coming
I said I’d be waiting
You said you wouldn’t be long gone
I said I’d be waiting
You said it was only temporary
I said I’d be waiting…
Nine breaths
Nine years
Nine life-times
And I’m still waiting.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
WHERE ARE YOU?
Where are you?
There is a song in my head
Yearning to be sung to you
There is a thirst in my Soul
Waiting to be quenched by you
There is a smile in my heart
Longing to be smiled at you
So where are you?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
SEX AND UNHAPPINESS
How can that be?
All this intimacy
And still not happy
All these people
All these hearts
And still so lonely
All these words
All these conversations
And your life still has no meaning
When you’re not with the one you really need
And all that sex
Is just the expression
Of unhappiness.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
UNFOLDING SHADOWS (A Duet)
Duet with Helenvalentina
On the morning I ached
For the memory of the night
When my soul within was stricken
Before ineffable light
And the face of one remembered
Was unutterably bright
In the mounts of memory
Hidden, this valley
Where you sang a sun
To birth, rise in glory
Spirit of immortality
Half-seen-and-unseen you pull me
From these ancient hallways
I witnessed the reign
Of a long yearned for god child
Returned to this plain
And I fell, not from weakness
But from fervour regained
And yet in truth we both know
‘Tis all half-truth and metaphor
Cloaking what it claims to unveil
Our thirst for less and more
Less of hide-and-seek
And more of flame and fervour
Ah and here the sweet pain
That rends through my soul
The numinous so fleeting
To encompass us whole
And yet then it’s just whispers
Where shadows unfold.
———————————————-
by Helenvalentina and Che Chidi Chukwumerije
———————————————-
HURT
When will he stop
Persecuting that guitar
His voice is hoarse
It hurts me
It digs a hole in my armour
Roughly
And scoops me out
Hoarsely
I wish I could remember him
In my dream tonight
When silence is wall
Enclosing me, she’s gone
His voice is gruff
A street musician
Enjoying his moment on stage
Roughly.
– Che Chidi Cjukwumerije.
ABSENCE
Random quantum sugar
Sweet on my tongue
Fleetingly I savour your love
When it comes
Unexpectedly, like a suddenly remembered dream
You never knew you once dreamed
… when?
Random how it leaps
Madness joy how it keeps
My lonely heart, how it weeps
Tonight
Unhappy to have grown used to your
Absence.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
SHIVER
The quiet quiet of that night over there
Look, that night is waiting over there
What a night! Quiet and black
The blackness swallowing up the fullmoon
It is a blind night
With a will so dark it smothers
It’s starry children
And blinds its one bright eye.
I shiver
As you approach
I shiver
As you reach out to me
I shiver
As you approach
Baby, I shiver.
I hesitate to look out through the window
Into the distance
At that night waiting for me
Me and my heart, my sojourning heart
The eerie cat is silent with fear
The snake slithers hastily away
I fear that night, but I must approach it
With my heart of flames – I am the sun
The cold sun.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije..
SOFTLY, KILL
Not like that.
Crown the valley.
The hilltop is smoking.
Smoking gun.
Chewing gum.
Nonchalantly tracing and caressing your
Archipelago of feelings
Like a toy ship
Boning the corset
Gargle your gift of gab
Smiling to the ravine
Love is an aspic
Softly, steer
Softly, stir
Softly, pick
Softly, kill.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
SALT
Your love was most present
In my life’s soup
When you were quietly absent
Your sea is a strong wall
Too deep, too intense, too wide
I don’t want it all
A pinch of you
On my flaming restless tongue
My dear, will do
You salivate my secret cult
With your infrequent invisible visits
Like salt.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 