Wreathes And Rivers Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Flowers spun from
yawning cuts weave
silver threads of air
into creeping wreathes,

splashed waters
sitting on cheeks
to drizzle down

chins for loved
ones floundering
over their blood,
when scarlet skies

tumble over red
dots creeping
into each other

in one slithering flow
of a roaring river,

a thousand breaths
disembogued onto
the feet of a waterfall.

(ii)

The riverbanks
are overflooded
with garnet

and ruby clouds
creeping out
of a mahogany hue,

a cut and wound
stitching their borders
for sunlight

in a rattling muzzle's
mouth, as its body
drowns in a ruby lake,

the sky touching
down with a crimson
cloak to lay
a wreathe, when flowers

of wounds are too heavy
for the breaking
shoulders wrapped
in drifting petals of blood,

overflooded banks
sipping gardens of love.

(iii)

Let us take cover
under a daisy cloud
of sky shrinking

into our feet with trowels
to seal holes
with gluing strokes
and hearth heating fondles,

a shrike's cracked voice
taking over clasped
and scrubbed cymbals,

as flowers bow
to the storm of a bolted gate:

O unbolt the gate
for us in albatross wings
riding a gale through
flowering plants

by sighing and choking rivers,
a wreathe on a door
breathing out a breeze.