Take My Wounded Hand Poem by Felix Bongjoh

Take My Wounded Hand
Take my hand
full of thorns,
each a thorn
with a stormy horn.

O take my wounded hand
shredded into a flying
albatross's wing span.

In this rising tornado
breaking flesh
mangling my feathery bones,

I cling onto the trunk
of your growing gust.

Let me hang onto
the rails
of my bed in embers,

its ashes the sheets
I cover
in the open room
of the rippled world.

Let me grab the hook
of an eagle's claw,

a hawk tying its wings
into a knot
in its barking mouth

pouring out beetles
and wasps and broken wings,

the sky-lifting parrot
under the gold umbrella
of its wings
steering its way with me.

(ii)

Floating corridor, O gate
to the island,
where a young man

drained his eyes out into
whips from a storm
of tightened fists clinging
to sisal knots.

Here I bear myself
in a fire burning me out
without smoke

from a bubbling crater
of spiked cobblestones.

In this light-glowed hall
draped in the ripples
of a wind-lifting pool,

I'm blown off and out
into open air, a tree rocking
red fruits on a high lap,
as I float and bloat into a cloud.

(iii)

In your wounds, let me flow
in a scarlet river
to the last canoe of my breath.

I trumpet out
my last
piece of lung, a chimney

swooshing out
soot and smoke from the flue
of a man
swallowing his wings.

Take off fumes
from my burning
swords of life
in a broken sheathe.

I ride on the last
stretch of life
deep down between

two canyon walls
squeezing me in.

I cast my shadow
at your feet O Savior;

let me etch out
my stone figure
from your rock-paved floor.