What is night?
Who gave it eyes
To see my soul?
Who gave it ears
To hear my inner voice?
Who gave it the sense
To smell my fears?
What is night
After midnight?
Who gave it arms
To hold me?
Who gave it words
To answer
The questions in my soul.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Illustration “What Is Night?” by Swana van Schaardenburg.
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?
So 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.
– 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.
Time could be a river
If I were standing still
Or a dream, if I
Had taken a sleeping pill –
But awake I meander
Through dreams which I fulfil
So I must be the river
And time is standing still.
– 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.
The light that comes
Comes from within –
Sun, moon and stars
Are stars in your own inner film
Morning comes with distant murmurings
Trains and cars and birdsongs gurgling
Silence broken by the rain
And swallowed up in silence again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
It’s called the hardworking middle-class
Let’s call it the narrow mountain-pass
For it keeps nervously thinning out
The underworld is getting crowdy
And impatient and restless and rowdy
Getting ready for a bout
The top one percent noiselessly feeds
Off the profits, the interests, the proceeds
No sound, no word, no whisper, no shout.
– 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.
Often, upon many an unquiet storm
Seeking calm exits through rough unfriendly seas
I have longed for death, and then
Quickly corrected myself, for even then,
Deep within, I sensed
That death would be no end.
And I have given kindness, even though
I knew that kindness would be a signal
To those who sail the dark waters
To come in and take advantage of me.
And I have kept many a dark secret silently inside
Just to protect some people, that they be not exposed.
And I have kept my peace
So that others may have their piece
And when they did not turn around
To say thank you, I have continued
To be that way still
For I know no other way to be.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Is the price
Of life
Too high?
Experiences that break you
And rob you of the desire
To carry on living.
Is the price
Of knowledge
Too high?
Experiences that teach you things
Which in the end you wish
You never came to know.
If the price
Is this high
Then the prize
Had better be worth it
What ever it may be.
Some say it’s eternal life
Some say it’s finding yourself
But what do they know?
All these wiseacres
Just as lost as you are.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 