Fat Storm Of Quivers Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A hot rainbow
dressed in a spectrum
of multi-hued
flying birds burns me
into ashes
and graphite smoke.

In the tree,
a tornado tunnels
up through
swinging branches

sheltering
me with sheets
of flying leaves
blanketed
by sheathes of dust.

My heart pulls
in the tune
of a paced song
and bony dance

with no femur to steer
the dancer
of me into shredded
leaves

in the swelling tree
in light air
with no lungs,

as a beast shows
up, flashes
of red sun in its eyes.

Swimming arrows
of lightning
shot into my sky
by the growling
drumming stormy beast.

A thousand wasps
from the beast's eyes
stinging me,

as I reach for
maracas in the gale,
to rattle me
through iced quivers

steering me
into a cataract's mouth
showering me
with more iced waters

with the wings
of a blacksmith's
sparks and blinding
smoke veiling

my daylight screen
with an onyx curtain
of night still far
off behind distant hills.

(ii)

How d' you describe
chills when ear
does not hear eye

shooting back
a peek
at the crawling worm
of a man dipped
in a deep freezer?

Only the hot flames
of an eye-rolling
growling lion
breathing
out flashy rays
from sun's corona

to wrap me up
in heavy tons of fear
erect pillars
before my frozen eyes,

as the beast
pulls forward
for a taste of my sky,
loose flesh

quivering off
its smoke-sheathed
bones
soft and brittle

like a raffia bamboo's
burning pith
in thick gray wreathes
of ashes

in smoky spirals
of garlands hung over
the neck
to glitter with the stars.

(iii)

O bright stars,
climb down
to seize me
before
the beast does

with a storm
of paws and claws

as it chisels
and hammers
sharpened
stones into death's
elastic skin.

(iv)

The beast charges
forward,
as I drift to hang
on a branch's tip,

I cut angles,
racing with a giraffe's
gallop,

and zigzag at sharp
angles
to duck the claws
of a beast.

But in the swift gale
of the animal's
chase, I zigzag again

at the sharpest
angles, the beast
roaring down a cliff,

its fat prize
and juicy prey
in my elephant-sized
drifting head

full of the wings
of toothless fear
barking in the storm
with a wild dog.