Dust-Bandaged, Rain-Soaked Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Out in a brown tunnel
of feathered daylight
rolling with spirals of glassy
taupe clouds,

I went out this morning,
abony bamboo-pith patient,
dust-bandaged
and bleached like a ghost.

Sun on broken clay
had ground hard life
into a gown of dust
every pedestrian wore.

O my God, the town
tailored tan and copper
uniforms into mahogany

overalls, beige
and tan powder spraying
sun-drained life
from toe to foreheads in clouds.

Heavy traffic thickened
the day's tunnel
into a heavy tan dusk,

clouds of dark powder
weaving nights
in the powdery bowl
offloating day crawling
under a tornado of dust.

(ii)

Under a ceiling of dust
in a street woven
and stitched to its borders

by trails ofrusset
thinning out into tan threads,

my thick coat of dust
is soaked into a paste, as showers
pour down with drifting winds,
as I fasten my belt

for a landing in desert strip,
but get dipped in a deep
bucketof water bathing walls of air,

cleaning up flying sheets
of dust with heavy dusty water.

A night of dust
Steered by a swelling gust
clothes me
in the flying wings
ofan early dusk.

In the living room of a street
rolled out into a river,
everyone riding potholes
with jumps,

I pierce a sky of rain and dust
with a clayey and muddy head
embroidered into rags
and feathers of a large brown bird.

(iii)

O fat bird of me
dust-bandaged, night-soaked,
let the silver rain
spin my evening jewel

into my narrow drive-in door,

where I settle down
with too many bandages
to roll into one night

of a day flying with dust
to my wall's crucifix,

this piece of brown wood steering
life nailed into a bird's wings
staring at me, as I gaze into my dust.