Windy Bakery Poem by Felix Bongjoh

Windy Bakery
(i)

Dry and warm clouds
spin arms and fingers to settle
in an earthenware bowl
of spirals and shooting gusts.

The whistling wind-ripped
and holed fabric
of a porpoise cloud

creeps to stitch itself
to bouncing yarns
and threads of rolling
creamy patches.

A large stiff bicorne hat
of tawny clouds
bounces over a pink stretch,

as it is pulled down,
tugged and shifted

and stretched out
over strings of gold.

(ii)

Still charcoal specks
of flat clouds
bleached into a heavy
dark cream flannel

are worn on a tallish
giraffe body holding up
its wrinkled neck
to a sky baked brown.

Rustling curtains
drop down through
an open
cream and beige polyester

with pebble and anchor shreds
and plain weave fabric
of bloated graphite.

(iii)

They expand into flaxen
and alabaster
melting into umber beads
and grassy clouds
over a bush of yellow petals.

The roasted sky sits
in its cream ship of clouds,
its deck
carrying a folded horizon

of ruffled cashmere
and polyester
overalls and tuxedos.

(iv)

The sun that burst out -
a beaming swan flapping wings
at early dawn -
with a lace-feathered head,

has shrunk and tightened
into a Ping-Pong ball

sinking with crimson
and ruby specks
behind the edge of a dark cloud

cutting through and bleeding
a rippled drifting sea

into a ruby stretch of water
for an ablution
by the gods of night
driven by the parched hands of a wind.