Hammers And Pliers Of A Mountain Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

To him at the mountain top,
Who thinks and flips
The mountain on his head

Crushing him
With heavier hammers
Than others' pliers,

Let him watch
A crumbling lady
Under a hill
on a shaking mountain.

She snakes her way
Out through worm holes.
Up she stands
On twisted crutches,

But marches straight
Uphill, a soldier
Broken but not fallen,
Her eyes glued

To the topmost floor
Of a rising story
Mounted on hills,
One staircase of rocks

Curving to the boulder
Of a new-born mountain,

Slopes kissing each
Other, as sharp fingers
of sunlight stroke.

(ii)

Downhill by a river,
The roaring blistered waters
Hurl off bloatedreeds
Toa bank at the lady's feet,

Slipping back beneath
A heavy tree branch, pressing
Her down, as she pulls

Her way out from the hands
Of the tree and river.

On her split and crumpled hair,
The woman carries
A sword-flipping storm,

Wedges a mountain
Of floods and mud beneath
Feathery feet and twig arms.

(iii)

And dives out
For the club that hammers
And scoops her way

Back to the tree
That leaned on her
With heavy hammers,

No pliers to tighten strings
Of a thought
Thatstitch schemas
Into the track

To hurl her back to shore,
From which she batters
Her way through
A deeper valley,

Wrestling with ropier
Lumpy waters

Dumping her on broken rock
And stones, hammers
And pliers
With little to bite off and tons to chew.