Withered In The Winds Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Large-mouthed drums
from garnet
and ruby burning eyes

skip and jump out
of sinking craters on faces,

as they throw out
large waves
of helleborus flames.

A tiger shrimp's pistol
strikes a gong
in a towering cloud,

elephant-sized stones
dropping
with a volcano's voice
into their deep gorge of fright
below the hill.

A gale does the double bass
on crackling branches,

as their world
growls
and bawls
and barks in smoke.


(ii)

They walk off, withered, amid
blooming pink stars,
these cherry blossoms

wearing spears
to pierce and rip apart
swinging winds

pinching them, pricking them
twisting them, cutting them.

The flowers roll up
their sleeves,

hurling off bee petals
to buzz with dripping
tortoise shells flapping wings.

The flowers swing back
gleaming glossy punches
with gloved tulip fists

They dive back to scars, spars
of dahlia tightening
their grip on a close-lipped smile
wearing the cold frost.

(iii)

In the biting midgets
and cutting teeth
of cold freezing air,

the men have been
uprooting a fat trunk

on a stony slippery
bony hillside
above a half-mile deep

diving gorge
sinking deeper to into a lake.

All withered,
the men hurl a gaze
uphill in the wind -

only to be fanned
by the flames
of gleaming flowers.

They throw a glance
downhill -

only to scoop out life
in glowing ripples
on the lake's nylon face.