A Fired Tornado Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Hooting wagons in the wind
falter and split
into chains and bumps

of a rubble, a funnel
deepening into a crater
bubbling in a thunder's mouth.

Amid waves spat
by a bobbing ship, hull sunk
to ribs and chest,
a fire from sky touches down.

A rumble jumps
and falls from
the breaking walls of a cliff,
as a tide rises.

When bells in a wind
peal and whisper
on a light-stretched shore

breaking shadows
as flowers shiver

with a tornado's gun
pointed and fired

to push and spiral
to a star above.

(ii)

Life's tree peak
perched on an arc

flips out a branch
to the cloud
that swells a rainbow,

the highest clouds
and untorn mist
the Mountain Being

takes back
from rising dust
to brew light from fireflies.

(iii)

An arc is sketched
by a Mountain's pull
man must bow to,

a sun splashing bees
and petals
through a window pane's
crack of light:

Bow when a storm's arc
swoops to take off
with the wings of an eagle
rolling sun-balled eyes.