When Rivers Matter Poem by Felix Bongjoh

A cut is made
into a graphite cloud,

sorrows' flesh
bleeding out night,
as wails melt
into sinking drizzles.

Silver rivers drip,
as drizzles thicken
into a downpour

from palisades
of spreading eyelashes.

And from a furnace
of stormy baked eyes
swimming in lakes

Leave the ridge
of slanted hairs wet
to stand like planted quills,

for man carries no
hair for a grassy bush,

but a hunter's arrow
to shoot at the beast
of grief in the face.

(ii)

Man carries
no feathers
for the twinkle-eyed eagle
flapping wings
by the hillside, as it lands

on its prey in rags
dipped in red rivers,

as those glued
to the prey's
sunlight and flowers
are left in silver streams

spraying their faces
to glitter like a sky,

when they're hugging
an uncleaned taupe
floor of gloom.

(iii)

Those who wear
dry deserts
on rocky faces

dig deep furrows
in a field,

sowing seeds deep
into earth,

a face's clay
mulched and left

to sprout with snivels
and sneezes
and dry singing coughs

spread on sheets
of dry faces
growing spiders
and barnacles to stick,

leaving scales
to beam and glow
with a crooning river's
ruffled skin,

as sea waves
of grief rise
and fall with splashes
sticking to hot dry faces,

burning them off
into a blue sky
veiling off nimbus.