Pendulum Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I've paced time
with swings
of sun
and dwarfed
shadows

expanding
to a snaky stretch
with no venom

to devour
time's tail into
a drifting
seesawed cloud.

I've swung
time back
and forth, a swift

wasting no
second to fly
over a sky-shattering
storm wave,

as a ship ducks
to cut off
the heavy axe
of a tumbling
swooping gale,

its sails flailing
out sands
from rising screens
of water,

its hull punching
back with
a stretched spine.

(ii)

What hourglass
marks the paced
slow stride
of a flying snipe
shooting its beak

to pull back
an afterfeather
from time's
golden eagle

flapping wings
at every clock's tick?

What pendulum
ticks with time's
drift to the edge
of time's cliff

kicking off flooded
waters from
a swinging ocean
spanning no shores?

How many times
do waves
fold up at beach
doors, only to unfold

to stretchy ripples
flapping swimming
wings of dry
butterflies and puffins
carrying rainbows,
waves still riding

high-saddled
bicycles of other waves,
waters sprinkling
with ripped
cream feathers

shredded into speckles
of cotton flying
off with sunny burning
wings finding
a new pendulum

of time tugged
from shore to shore
to spit out
silt and debris,
as a whirlwind lowers

a pendulum's wings
to the blue hole
of death sinking,

as time ticks
to rake out
seaweeds and plankton

from the sea flower
of a shell rolling
with time's whirring waves,
the only pivot
of a tide frozen ripples?