Crowns Of Pain Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Pain, acacia thorns
crowning me
with Christ's nectar
on Mount Calvary.

Prickle me once,
but not in a chain.

Tingle and sting
my bumpy rocky flesh,
but not my clinking
jangling ears,

already prey
to you rolling claws.

But do not burn
the walls of my inner
fort standing
on crusty
breaking strings.

Take off your molars
of a grinding mill
chewing me to ashes,
counting time
with slug steps.

Not with a lumber-
jack's saw
driven
and re-driven
through,

as wood
bleeds sawdust,
while I bleed,

and I burn beneath,
flames sinking
to melt my marrow
in sharp-tongued
needles.

Wriggling through
my veins, my sun
and jabbing stars
switched off.

(ii)

I'm handed over
to the dark hollows
of life by cascades
of jumping waters

from the dimple
of a smirk, culverts
between wrinkles

draining out
sludge
from a sharper
prickle pasting wasps

to settle for drinks
beneath skin
growing hills of bumps,

as spiders from
my scratching nails
crawl through me.

And I can only
wriggle like a dying
snake flogged
to bleeding specks.

(iii)

Jeremiah, let me
share my pain
with you, as I swim
in a cherry river
trailing your heels.

Kissing scars
sticking out from
your chapped soles
mauled by rats
and mice of pain.

Let me find refuge
in your storm
of writhing trips

to a shore of pecking
clicks and chirps,
and buzzing bees
I can milk for honey
and wear
a soothing hat.