Bones Of Storm In A Wind Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The boy is hung
on a gossamer thread
of his last wing,

his stomach shrunk
by too much air.

The breaking lad
with sculpted shrunken eyes
sees only stars,
the remaining scars of sun,

the moon in broad daylight
having abandoned him

to lions that roared off
with his shredded meal
of rice an bones,

the flesh of herring beating
drums down the throats
of bullying burly young men.


(ii)

Flesh plays bassoons
in the stomachs of overfed
older bawling boys

still swelling in rolling balls
in their elephant bulk,

as a sky of gods
slims down to stratus clouds
of a boy skipping
with a grasshopper's legs

in the oversized
flying shirt of a storm

that can't blow off the ashes
of heavily-feathered bullies,

as he continues to burn
in their embers
and red-eyed coals.

(iii)

Time gathers spittle
churned and swallowed

by the boy dangling
around, as he spins
on a ropy breaking body

that won't tighten
his stomach into less crave
for creeping scraps
of food, dry bones of a fish

floating in salted water
from the last scoop
of a god's showered gaze,

when there's only thick
air of soot from
the laughing mouths

of bullies widening their ribs
into baskets
for no bouquets,

but stretched arms
to toss in chunks
of food scooped out
from a boy's thin dish, as a sun is killed
to sail in a herringbone weave cloud.