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.
I know a Girl
She loves to pray
And everytime we kiss
She runs away in shame
Because I don’t fit into her world
And she can’t look her leader in the eye
When I’m on her mind
Is your river flowing?
Should I… check again?
Breathing hard she runs far away
And in the distance we can pretend
That she’s stronger than Shame…
She’s ashamed of herself
For not being herself
Because she’s afraid of herself.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Who will it be
After me?
Who will it be
Baby?
Who could make it
Like it was?
Who could take it
And leave no flaws?
Never forget me
Little tease
Never forget me
Please.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I heard a soft cry in the night
And knew not where it came from
Through the open window
It floated in on a warm summer’s night
Just one cry, soft and intense
And short it shuddered the night
Like a single pulse of night’s heartbeat
Swallowed up in echoless suspense
I knew not if it was a cry of pain
A cry for help, of fear or of liberty
Or if it was a cry of crowned ecstasy
Of one in pleasure and passion lain
It spoke of terror and sang of delight
A mystery that revealed neither where nor why
All I knew was that it was the soft cry
Of some woman’s voice in the night.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 