Frozen Dead End Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Here's the road
to the drifting
dead end
by a slithering river

on a cheek's
rippled melting slab,
a slice of mud
carrying flesh, as I

melt and freeze
back into a hardened
rock of me,

and canyon walls
squeeze me in
from two
tumbling banks.

How birds fly
into skies
by climbing tall
trees rising
from silt

along a river flung out
like a silvery ship shank
to be knotted

into a loop
to hold in
a ballooning boulder
in the rough-flowing
rattling current.

(ii)

In my living room,
a bumpy
sofa bed stretches
out old potholes
of eroded wool

and hemp fabric
bursting
into springs
in a soft muddy seat
with no more steam.

I'm flanked
by bookshelves
rising with the rocky

shelves of books
spun by a kickplate
and layers
shooting me up

from a recess bottom
to grab a nosing
of rock
and rise to
a drifting ceiling of air
flying above
to the edges of the world.

My wallowing living
room floats
by a fast river,
these watery
sleepy eyes of mine

drowned in a world
with too many loose edges
to tighten
into a standing

transparent
crystal vase
flipping out

loose sleeves of leaves
in the frozen

dead end of a gold-
and silver-lined living room
spinning with birds

over a wrecked ship
drifting ashore,
my sofa bed planted
down with me.