Salvation Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Lilies, spray me with
snow and cotton powder.

Shall I ride on
a purifying agapanthus
on a condor's wings,

or cream magnolia
pouring out
doses of Christ's blood
into my muddy mouth?

After mumbled outpourings
from the volcano
of my inner bowl,
let me rise with a tornado
to your yawning door.

Wipe out my trespasses
on life's rocky road,
O Lord my savior,
expunge the slime
and grime I've flung

at clean folks, when I was
covered in the mire
of my path eroded
by showers from obsidian
shades of me hanging

in the sky. They've
burnt me
deep down to my bones,

but switched on air's taps
to pour down
without rinsing me
through and through.

(ii)

Let the sun scan me,
O rays
filtering the fumes
and onyx smoke
of my bubbling confession

with a bright moon,
when I'm not cleansed
by light
from a penduline tit's eyes,

and glazed
with my own blight
cleansing me right down
to my fungus-
thickened claws

gnawing at me, as I walk
to your altar,
clothed in old snake-skin
licking me
with the venom of my sin,

my toes numbed by stones
I've not kicked
or broken on my path.

(iii)

For I've heard
leaves whisper back
with swords
and scythes of mine
in the gale
that hurt bleeding folks,

as a dusty dusk waves
the only
wide-brimmed hat

to shield me
from the jade soot
and a free-falling midnight
at mid-day.

Behind this screened
latticed cubicle,
your box stall,
let my spear-pointed
woods shoot back at me

with brooms to clean
my carpet, as I'm delivered
by the drooling dove
of my deep inner bowl.