Take in little sips
My waterfall
My aching brown lips
Gently call
Did softly my love
Water your flower?
Then a Little is enough
… A gentle shower
So, now, slow it down
Time stands still
And the heights we crown
Will be gentler still
Come, cup your Hands –
The night rain
Fills and understands
Our gentlest pain
And when I flow away
Say to our offsprings
In your wild blood play
Love’s gentle wings.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
On Bar Beach
On the shores of Lagos
Before the sea reclaimed the land
In those times
When all we had was soft white sand
On a moonlit night hard
Pressed I rode you on my Atlantic stallion
And the hooves that galloped across the sand
Cried of mermaids and whispers and sunless depths
And during the day I was at work
Renting my horse out to tourists
And middle-class upper-class noisemakers
And snobs and their children enjoying
A day at the sea, they pay to trot
Horseback upon the sea’s sand licking fingers –
And there you were, underneath
The thatch roof, selling fried buns, cold softdrinks
And ice cream and catching my eye
And we dreamed impatiently of the approaching night
Of long after midnight
And the lonely beach, the hoarse waves
The salty breeze, that soft pale sound
And the ride hard pressed upon
Our Atlantic steed, nostrils flaring into the wind
Stallion and mare
And the world is pounding the sand
And Lagos is fast asleep.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
A thought of mine
Well-saddled, gallops on
Its hasty steed
Like a need seeking another need
For the ache has become
A part of my memory of you
And my needing to be needed by you
Has become too, too heavy to share
With anybody else but you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I love you when you speak
The language of peoples gone;
Your mind, if you don’t mind, is antique;
Your honey tongue is on the run,
Breathlessly chasing a people’s dream
Gently up the stream.
You were my lover in hot dark nights
And you just couldn’t keep still;
Your tongue was restless as those kites
That circle and circle the forbidden hill,
And you taught me the language that lovers speak
When the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak.
Coo like a dove, my sweet love,
The sounds that you make are never enough.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
You are not yonder desert
That cried a wailing note
In the history books of strangers
Oh no! Nor a lost ocean
Shedding tears on every shore
Its aching fingers can reach, oh no!
I say what you hear, yes
Believe what you hear me say to you
You are not lost in translation
Did your lips taste the flesh of my teeth
Or your tongue flower with grace?
I see your ears smiling
Now, lie still and let the seeds of prophecy
Germinate and take root, roots
That grip your earth, yearning with fruit
I did it twice for a reason
The first time to make you feel at home
The second time to set you free again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Transported by the tides of love
Inspired by the love of One
I sat down in a cove,
All alone.
My heart gushed forth with deepest love
For I love two women, not one;
Thus pause I in a cove,
All alone.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The light of the moon uncovers the night
Sends a shiver across the fur of grass
A sleeping tree awakens, turns
Reaches out with its strong, slow branches
Bristling with leaves
The wind suddenly holds its breath, in the hush
The night beats faster
The earth yearns harder, as clouds quickly gather
And the rain softens the dark.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Four example
Camel Lion
Your dreamy dark eyes
Bottomless pools of wanting
Crow’s bones
Lord of the thighs
Unhappy keys, open me
A bright queer inner light-flash
Sometimes camel, sometimes lion and me
Waterbottle
Just fooling around
Sex and Sax
Keep it tight, yeah that’s just alright
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I did not want to talk to her.
It was enough, this distance
Was a canvas on which I could
Her Beauty admire, enjoy my desire
In its state of perfection
But, oh!, I spoke to her. She broke
The mirror in which I admired the reflection
Of my perfect her.
Who is this shell
Talking to, touching, lying beside me?
Falling fast like a rock that
Was lifted too high for its own good.
The moon is beautiful
Only from afar.
Before you demystify her, stop
And take one last look at what you’re about to lose.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
She told me the tongue
Is the instrument of the heart
Learn to use it well, for song
And touch, to part and to impart
I tell you this, she said
Because you make my tongue restless
Then I knew what she wanted
A drink of tenderness
Blue was that night
And underneath the mango tree
Me warm me hands in her fireside
She sang of honey
Yet, though she’s melting me, watching me
Still my admiration is voiceless, deadpan
Words of flattery would be
A waste of woman.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 