Bottom Of A Wall Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Bottom of a canyon wall.
A gale blows us down
to our legs in uneven stumps.
And to a pebbled floor.

Beneath our soles, high
balls and punches of a river

driving through and through
with no brakes. No wedge
at a cataract's mouth.

Galloping stretches,
horses' hoofs kicking and riding
a stretch of water
shooting down the slope
in a narrow tunnel

beneath a plumped-in
fat round stone
shouting: "I'm a dead-end
wall and no door to a garden.

No door to a balcony
overlooking a wave unfolding
like a stormy blanket
tossing us into a storm of sleep".

(ii)

Bottom of a rocky bump
growing a hill
and the pushing mountain
that squeezes us
to peek at our shredded soles,

when a wind shreds air
into spiders creeping back
to bite us in the fangs of a blizzard.

And muddy pebbles
are catapulted at us,

as the world tilts on a spiky axis
and no foamy carpet,

opens hugging arms to catch
us into its nest
of whispering birds
in a heavy tree-swaying storm.

(iii)

On a canyon wall's slope
a tree of folks collapse

in breaking branches
stretching arms
no further down a rift,

a carpet of stropped-mouth
fattened wasps
licking their lips,

blowing whistles hanging
on gossamer threads
to drop us in a canoe tilting

towards a bank carrying
the glow of a splayed sun
on their narrow faces

holding out snake-tongued spears
with slippery butt-ends.