Her submission was gentle
Like the admission of a lie
With head bent down
And a whisp of shame on her lips
At first she refused to move her hips
And for a long time her eyes were closed
And yet, without saying a word
Or moving an inch, tenderly
Like the tide rolls in
She shed the finer layers of her skin
And let me in.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Beautiful is the song of siring
In haunts of wanting
In gaunt bellies of starving need
My roots will ravish your burning greed
And then turn again, midnight
And accept the other side of the sun
Thrust out the other cheek
And if it hurts, let the pain make you weak
The weak will inherit the night
And the strong will be on their knees
Begging for more of yesterday
No to power, yes to play.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Wait for the knocking of the carpenter
For it won’t be long
Lovingly building that cradle, soft of hay
It will be rocked by a virgin’s song
But a prouder man, a truer man
Will watch over the smile of a radiant star
– Then, lonely earth spirit, light up your heart
For Christmas is no longer far.
And if you think deeper, you will realise
He did not come to die, but to open up our eyes
To Life, to love, to a new reason to strive.
Breathe again, wilted human flowers – and rise…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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.
He was my best friend
Yet when we parted
None gave news to the other
Of the path he charted
Where one went high
The other went low
And where one learned to lead
The other learned to follow.
She was a wild flower
But deep in her soul
She was a gentle morning
That made people whole
She fell in love with one
Then met the other
And fell for him too
Like he was her lover
Torn between a leader
And a follower
She learned with surprise that the higher
Is indistinguishable from the lower
The hunter is the hunted
The writer is the reader
The leader and the follower
Are both follower and leader.
He was my best friend
And though we walked separate ways
Destiny brought us together
Back to the same place.
– 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.
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.
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.
I used to call you petal
Each time I pulled your lobes
And read your thoughts
Discreetly from far away in my personality
The way the farmer reads the clouds
Early in the morning
And thus you told me, without words
When to sow and when to reap
When to prune and when to weed
And when to wait with the patience
Of a farmer waiting for the harvest
Of his labour of love…
Those were the months you thought I was cruel
For the mystery of mirrors is this
The mirror cannot show you what’s
At the back of your mind. Only your lover can
When he breaks your heart
In order to get into it and conquer it
And thus did I imprison myself
For the conundrum of conquests is this
The king is the captive of his own kingdom
And when you let me break your heart
Little did I realise that you did it
Just to make sure you got me in
I came in for the kill
And never made it out again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 