A Peaked Climb Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Climb, Climb.
Creep up
with crab hands.

Slither like a lizard.
Spin a snake's
swing
to wind yourself up,

your legs
gliding along
with a curling coiling tail.

When out of breath,
scroll yourself
into a millipede

and stay put
on a brittle slab
holding you
with a wind's wings

to fly up, should
your lodge
crack and slip off.

Let every finger grip
like a claw,
as we climb
to the fruit tree
by the bank.

(ii)

Don't let the slippery wall
slip down with you,

as your head carries
the butt
of your comrade
above you

on a rocky canyon
ladder's climb
swinging with you
through a smooth stretch
of your climb.

Let your stretchy
shadow
above your shoulders
pull you

with the elastic sunrays
shooting you
forward like a catapult
pulled
to a maximum stretch

by latex fibers
of your mile-long breath
burning, but not
not spraying cinders.

Your breath only lights
new candle
yellow petal flames
to flower you

with crawling bright ribbons
taking you
to the fruit tree
on the rocky bank
still holding its own.

(iii)

Clamber up,
O scale up, folks,
to that rocky knoll
carrying
the flag of a storm,

a man drowning
in mud,
screaming

under the heavy
studded boots
of a BIR soldier,

his weevilled core flaming
with flowers
on a fruit tree that only
pulls you up.

We're there. The bonfire
of a breath
explodes over a man,

whose breath
only lights up a campfire,
as we crawl up
to his rescue:

o sun, we're here with you,
having crawled up
through flowers of fire
on a canyon wall.