BY CHIDIEBERE UDEOKECHUKWU
The alternative title to the first poem is “Shylock of Dichemso I”. Dichemso is a suburb of the city of Kumasi, Ghana. Copyright is held by the author.
I pawned my pussy
like shylock, on the streets of Dichemso.
Day after day, my room reeked
incense of semen and 400 condom sheaths —
ruffled up and dripping cream in
a rubbish bin by a window pane.
My raddled brown foam was set
on an iron bunk; and the nights especially,
were squeaky and mad. In those darkling
days, each night fetched handsome
dollar tributes to Madame who swore me
a bloodied oath of servitude and sex.
I was plundered without compassion by
depraved dreamy desires of men who
long had grown tired of humanity,
of Love and fidelity.
Shylock of Dischemso II
A savage bite still throbs on
my surviving nipple and a scar
winds over my broken nose and
down along my chiseled cheek.
But stay your tears and
cry them for Nina, my friend.
That girl was well sculpted,
and she strode tall and graceful.
Death in the dark would be her lot;
for once, was a time when
lots of johns called her away and
forward two nights there,
at the ends of Kumasi, she laid
lifeless, breastless and bare
and sprawled, and eyes to a clueless sky.
My tale will not be wholly spent.
Each man-hood I have known for
a nightly handsome pay of
20 dollar notes, is a trophy of shame
on the pride of my woman.
For 10 years, I chewed my shame,
bitter like paracetamol,
on the darkling streets of Dichemso.
and sipped it rancid cold, like spoiled palm wine,
in my pornographic pawnshop.
***
Chidiebere Udeokechukwu is an LLM candidate at the University of Nigeria. He is an associate poetry editor at Poetic Africa and The Crusaders Magazine. He appears in the shortlist of the 2023 Writing Ukraine Prize. He also appears in the long list of the 2022 Briefly Write Poetry Prize. He won the 3rd prize for poetry in the 2022 Creators Of Justice Awards (IHRAF). His poems have appeared in Text Power Telling Magazine, Verum Literary Press, African Global Network, IHRAF Publishes, Adanna Literary Journal, Writers Space Africa Magazine, Jaden Magazine, Pride Magazine Nigeria and Irawo Poetry Anthology.
