Nib Of A Blue-Eyed Gull Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Sky digs
into
a blue black
cloud

spilling brick
and cherry
crawling
in dotted drips

with a blue
undertone.

Air spins
indigo
and blue wings
flapped

to grow
cerulean arrows
hurled
at a ruby bird

and blue starling
to bleed
with a tap
turned
on to drizzle.

(ii)

O scatter
your blue
showers to fly
out

in tilting
brooms

cleaning off onyx
and charcoal
specks and speckles,

reddish blue
blood
spurting out

to pour
a bubbling mix

into a deep
earthenware
pot of blue ink

filtered from
onyx and ebony
specks

growing
dark floating red
garments

to clothe
a cardinal

behind
a black-headed
gull
in its full
wingspan.

(iii)

Thickening
indigo
in the spinning

inkpot
into bloody
feathers.

Inkpot of blood
and blue ink,
tilt sky's mouth,

and I'll dip
a quill
to carve out
a cursive

for the obituary
of Ngarbuh
and Kumba

children
beyond a sky

in the swirl
of a firmament's
horizon.