THE POETRY COURT

The Poetry Court is glad to announce to you that from May 2015 we will be having POETS OF THE MONTH.

These are the details of how we will be arriving at our "poets of every month"
1: We have four weeks in a month, so we will start with a shortlist of ten (10) poets for every month.
2: ThePoetryCourt will search online for quality poems within two weeks of every month then we will announce our shortlisted poets at the end of the second week of every month. The shortlisted poems will also be announced, every second week of the month, for all to read.
3: Poets and lovers of the art will then cast votes, by sending the names of three poets, in the order at which they want the poets to come on as our POETS OF THE MONTH.

To Vote For Your Nominated Poets, Send:Names of the poets, titles of their poems, and a brief reason of why you want them to be our Poets Of The Month.3: Votes will run, all through the end of the second week through to the third week of the month.

We will be announcing our poets of the month to the world, by publishing their poems and short bio on our blog. www.thepoetrycourt.blogspot.com

The time is here again, let's rock poetry together forever.'May the best poets be shortlisted and may the best poets be our POETS OF THE MONTH'

We are also compiling a list of African poets (Spoken Word Poets, Written Poets, and Promoters of Poetry) to celebrate National Poetry Month, this April 2015. Tagged THE POETRY COURT POETS ENCYCLOPEDIA.In there you will find POETS that ROCK.

Our POETS ENCYCLOPEDIA will be published on our blog before the end of April 2015.POETS ROCK

You can also now send in your short stories, and essays to our gmail account.Don't forget to send your picture and a short bio, max 100 words.

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When It Sinks In...

The Reverend father sprinkled water on the coffin and the words ‘I bless the body of Ifeoma Ada Mark Anthony with the Holy Water which recalls her baptism…’ resounded in the church hall.

I imagine that my newly widowed friend cannot begrudge medical personnel and clergy for referring to his adorable wife as ‘the body’. I imagine that the past twelve days have been grueling for him. I can imagine many things but I certainly cannot imagine what he must be going through, nay, what he will go through after the requiem and interment are over.

I sat through the Liturgy, struggled to enjoy the melody of the sung psalms and absorb the messages from all three readings. I marveled at the choice of the story of Mary, Martha and Lazarus for the gospel reading. This story’s high-point(for me) has always been the calling of Lazarus back to life, but in the reading we end at Jesus asking Martha if she believed that anyone who had faith in Him, though he dies shall yet live. An unfair passage to read; this is what I will think later on.

At the Prayer of the Faithful, we are to respond ‘Open the gate, the gate of heaven, open the gate for Ifeoma…’ And I send prayers that she may awaken light, unburdened by earthly worries. A prayer which indeed is a prayer for myself as well, when the time comes.

Determined not to shed a tear, I walk out of St Agnes with heavy eyes, as the choir sang ‘God be with you, till we meet again’

She was beautiful. She was a model when we were in school and beyond rocking clothes that flattered her table-flat tummy, she was a kindhearted person. Everyone agreed to this one fact, and to the fact that she had a smile for everyone and a sharp but playful retort for close friends.

Walking to the graveside, we joked about this.

Sunny P said he would miss the way she teased him with ‘Oni gbese!’ whenever they saw or spoke on the phone. He said his singular regret since they both became designers was that he had put off one of her requests for too long. He had promised to teach her how to sew trousers and had been postponing till the inevitable happened.

‘Shey na tomorrow I wan come teach am the trouser?’ he said, half lamenting, half clowning.

‘So, like say you don teach am to sew trouser, she for dey sew trouser for dat side abi?’ I asked him in turn and hit him playfully on his mildly protruding occiput. We laughed, and Richystar joined us. We probably cut a strange picture in a cemetery but in that instant, I knew the reflex was a welcome diversion from the matter at hand.

I planned to be stoic, to not shed tears for a friend I had only spoken to once in the last year. When the undertakers approached the coffin after the prayers, the sniffs and wails went up in the air like sand dunes in a desert, but I kept my eyes on the coffin. I made out her siblings crying and my heart went out to them. When Tunde collected the shovel, I sensed his strength and my resolve melt into the shovel as he dropped the sand, and in that melting, the tears flowed freely on his cheeks; mine too.  It was only just beginning to sink in.

He was led away from the graveside, and I stood impotent as my tear ducts burst a dam. Sunny P’s hand rubbing my back did nothing for the dam, and minutes later as my eyes trailed Tunde’s heart wrenching lament for his lovely wife, I saw Sunny P struggling with his own tears.

Ifeoma Ada Mark Anthony

My friend is too young to be widowed less than three years after their wedding. But can one really question death? I listened to him blame himself for allowing her go on that trip, and I stretched my hand to hold his- me outside the window, him inside an SUV where he was flanked by men, both of them our former course mates. I told him he wasn’t to blame. But these words and the others said in consolation will only make sense later. Only after the grief has taken its sometimes tormenting course will the pain lessen.

Till then, I do pray that Ifeoma is in a good place, willing Tunde the strength to live on as we pray and wish her the strength to also move on. Celine Dion was right; Goodbye is the saddest word… 

Of passings...

Two passings in two weeks; it doesn't get any easier to accept. 

All the faith and the understanding that life on earth is but a stopover, doesn't quite prepare one for these things. It doesn't stop me from imagining; sometimes feeling the pain of my friends at their spouse’s exit. It is no easier with the fifty-something year old father of four than it is with the thirty-something year old mother of none.

The fact that I have held a dead body in close proximity before doesn’t make me more immune to the goose-flesh inducing news that days after an auto crash, then surgery to correct severe head injuries and a ruptured liver, my beautiful friend is no more to be referred to as Ifeoma, but simply; the body.

Thoughts of passing from this realm to the next…

May you awaken light; unburdened by earthly cares, and eager to fly. May your spirit know joy as you glide home on angels wings! 


Photo credits: Google