Red Roses In The Street Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(for victims of the Muyuka massacre in Ambazonia)

(i)

O swiping stroking breeze,
with afterfeathers
blown out on sweeping wings,
you've brushed off

a cruised cloudy scarlet air
from a stained petrichor.

Sprayed and stretched out
like a lake of spring water
with neither wrinkles nor ripples.

Screaming taps have sung
and flowed out frozen limbs
and thick trunks of bone and muscle
ballooned into a heavy air,

under which wriggling arms and legs
crawl and slither,
tethered to their shadows.
,
A red rain has showered
the land again. Drizzles of a garnet
hue carry slashed shadows
of you through ruby loops -

through latticed holes
from screens
of air's drifting windows.

(ii)

Flying lava from a volcano
has touched down on
stalks and vines,
these green fields, soiled earth
flooding with itself

to grow creeping carmine
and brick stains flowing
into maroon pools on arms
and legs chained to their shadows.

From a widened rose river
cherry and berry tributaries
have spurted out from the glossy

flesh of folks mulching
springs in silver rivers by flowers

breathing out a scent
of love from dawn's unclothed attire.

Let the sun's pink glow
soften biting wounds, their teeth
still sinking into a fire

of pain, as folks creep out, falling over
each other to see a star
in the sunny wallowing sky.