Fall Falling Freely Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Drop, drop, drop.
And fall flat
with an iced face,
a croaking frog

in the deepening throat
of a yawning tap
unchoked, thick showers

shooting hammers
to drive nails through
an unfilled hole.

Fall flat with butterflies
in the face,
when moths ride
dusty handkerchiefs

no longer scooping off
trimmed feathers
from a cackling eagle's back,

as a storm wave
lands on the tail of a duck
shrugging off
every flying ounce,

an arms-spanned bed
ready for a mouthful
of sludge. Tumbling from a pipe
of me drained out

of storm and spat out
when a marsh
is already full of mud.

(ii)

Fall freely in the tide
of pushing cascades,
spirals of smoke
and gaudy flames

in their mouths, rainbows
spreading bird wings
to the full span
of a pink cream

morning, a sun's crystal silver
already breaking into shards.

How can you rise, while
logs and mountains
are pulling you down.

Down, down to their feet
to crawl with ants
and the worm in its winged
smoothness and softness
flying at your crawling eyes.

(iii)

Fall when a tornado
tumbles to its shoulders,
neck stretching

into a beam for a pole vault,
no cushion in a lone
couch by a bedside hanging

its bed in the hands
of a tycoon's spread wings,

a jumping geyser
from flooded eyes
tumbling into sinking cheeks.