A Choir Of Loud Clouds Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(for a wailing crowd)

(i)

Round winged bunches
of water, creep.
O creep.
O sink into flowery marshes.

Leap into yourselves
with brushing breezes.

But do not fly over
sobbing brows
with arrows that burrow.

Lie down to mumble
and warble
with ladybugs and manbugs
crooning with whispers

from kingfishers' hymns
in holes
sinking deep into sand banks.

All sing out the dregs
of moments cut off
from a thunder's sprung-up

and spattered voice
shaking leaves
to drop
into fast bumpy streams

cascaded down
from the hills
to whistle and groan
at this cliff's edge,

a woman breaking down,
as a man tumbles over.

(ii)

O lachrymal floods
galloping down
cheeks of a wrinkled land.

Through pimples
on a grassy face

growing
mice, fleeting threads
glistening
on a burning face.

Life scooped out
from earth, ploughed
in ridges
through the land,
jagged cheeks
below hilly cheekbones.

(iii)

Run on this glen
on the temple
of a wailing land stretch.

Sit in this dimple,
a deep hole
in the cheek harboring beads

and steel chains
of water tying up dry throats
hanging on this snake
wriggling down
to the edge of a large mouth.

Jump down quietly,
but do not swallow
watery pops
of warblers, as moments sob
and wail with a bang.