Where From Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

From a swollen wave
On high seas
Of folks molded and stitched

Out of the clay
And fibers of splashed streaks.

From dumped sludge,
Mounds of worm-woven goo
Crowned by feathers
Of a vulture shed
When only bones and ribs ride broken wheels.

And dressed the bank to weave baskets
Of sorrows folks carried back home
To the mountain of a popping hearth,

A bonfire's blanket
No foam to wipe off blood
From bleeding bowls

From rolled-off logs
Drumming the breaking banks
Of an ocean
Carrying a fisherman

With no padded hands to paddle
A stony sinking canoe
Ploughing waves towards a sinking blue hole.

(ii)

From disembogued waters
Off a river's cliff,
Every wind a crow's tail on a slab of night.

From a splash of sparkles
Twinkling over a band captain's cracked flute
Rattling like hurled-off shoes
Pulled in a wheeled trashcan full of garnets.

And when your curriculum vitae
Does not carry storm and wild fire,
No quill will roll out

The river of squiggles to take you
To a monarch's cabinet of vultures
As vampire bats knock at a phoenix's door.

(iii)

And when you flee dawn's flames
Stretched and rolled off
Wallowing elephants of clouds beneath your brow -

A galloping horizon riding boats -
You bulldoze a mountain of waves
Building mile-long valleys and cliffs drowning you.

A volcanic storm-built vulture
Pecking a wounded porpoise drifted ashore
To a table of spume,

From which you grab a fork -
No herringbone gripping a prong -
To scoop out gobs of blood for the badge
Dumping you in a barge

With janitors and messengers
Waiting on a wave, a cut on air's skin swiping sky

With the swung dangling lance of lightening
To the explode the volcano of a tall sword's smirk
Poking a galloping star's eye in one one belly drift.