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Guest Blog: Three Poems by Emmanuel Iduma

22 December 2015/in Tuesday Poetry

I

When night

covered me

in a prayer blanket

I interceded

for our recumbent figures

 

& watched

the interminable horizon

of lost love

 

I know you twice

first as azure

distant beauty

second as marigold

glistening body

 

They say

those who leave

die slowly

I say

I have dreamt many mournings

 

I dream you leaving.

 

II

Tell me this:

How many elusive ways

are there to say

I leave you?

 

In affection as in life

we tolerate endings differently:

 

A man lingers too long

in the shadow

of a lover’s departure

 

Or discovers

infernal despair

after the shock of absence

 

In leaving as in life

clarity is accompanied

by sad prescience

 

Knowledges of ways

a once airy room

turns pungent

 

As meanings accumulate.

 

III

The day unfolds

in tremors of regret

& departure

 

Once in an airport…

 

All ground

now known to us

shifts on memories

of rescinded proposals

 

Two is a number

of rebuttal

and hence

of acceptance

& disavowal

 

This way

I know you twice

___________

Emmanuel Iduma is a Nigerian poet, novelist, art critic and lawyer.


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https://damiajayi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Dami-Ajayi-Logo-WT.png 0 0 Dami Ajayi https://damiajayi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Dami-Ajayi-Logo-WT.png Dami Ajayi2015-12-22 01:33:112015-12-22 01:33:11Guest Blog: Three Poems by Emmanuel Iduma
4 replies
  1. agatha318
    agatha318 says:
    22 December 2015 at 7:50 am

    Hehe. Emmanuel Iduma is not a poetaster! Such poignant poems about leaving and not loving…. inside this harmattan cold!

    Reply
  2. Benson
    Benson says:
    22 December 2015 at 7:41 pm

    Hmm… beautiful!

    Reply
  3. oluafolabi
    oluafolabi says:
    29 December 2015 at 7:16 am

    This is indeed beautiful.

    Reply

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. Guest Blog: Three Poems by Emmanuel Iduma | Angeldee Blog says:
    22 December 2015 at 3:46 am

    […] Source: Guest Blog: Three Poems by Emmanuel Iduma […]

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Dami Ajayi

DAMI AJAYI

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Dami Ajayi finds a way to fuse being a writer into his busy doctor schedule. Known as Jolly Papa (JP for short) by his friends—a sobriquet he took from a song by Rex Lawson—the poet cum doctor cum music critic makes seamless transitions between these orbits around which his life rotates.

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