Barbs Of A Hand Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(a chat between WEB Dubois and Booker T. Washington)

(i)

Dubois sobbed out
the feather of a nerve

spinning a stone
to grind a mound
into a fruit tree's roots.

Roots carried
the hand
to wind and spiral a rachis
into life's flying bird.

The barbs stroking
a shaft to swivel and pirouette
a feather on a wing

plucked strings of wind
to sing and blow
on the path of a man driving

wheels of thought
to make a wheelbarrow
take off into high skies
with the blustering voice of a jet.

(ii)

Booker Washington
cackled out
that molding the hand
to carve out flying wings

chiseling out bumps
on wood to make a bird fly
held out life's flower

to bloom over life's caves
of storm waves.

See, the carpenter cuts out
those storms
into breezes caught

in a crawling couch
to spring up from sleep and turn
oily nuts to make an engine

groan and growl
with the claws
of well-treaded wheels.

(iii)

See, the blacksmith churns
and spits out
sheathes of smoke
to rise above

silver air and weld
scraps into the pole
that holds a castle on its feet.

And stands a ship
to sail through
dark blankets of waves lifted
to wind down screens
on a sea's drifting windows.

(iv)

Oho! chuckled Dubois
with a drawl
lighting up night on his face
into stars chasing a comet.

Until the bright body exploded
into a wave's angle
plotted on a high table
floating with hypotenuses,

the geometer
cutting out the angle
of his chortling lips

into barbs carrying a shaft
to land with a preened bird
on a ship's deck,

a loop held out by a sailor
to fly both great men
to a wind on a mountain

stroking both farmer
for fruit and grain
and explorer throwing eyes far beyond
a dwarf wave's horizon.