A Stretch Of Me Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Picnic or
booted trudge
through
a jagged
landscape?

Full to the brim
a glass
of sky,
drizzling, whining,


or caved in,
a deep
volcano's mouth
still holding
hot magma to flower

into waspy
wings nibbling off
tons of me
with a licking bite,

when daylight
cuts off no midnight
and storms
blow on and on

through
a narrow path
in a closely woven
jungle

housing cascades
of light
on a mangled face,
as my face
is folded up

into the shredded
edges of a ship
a crawling ship shank,
as I jump
back a board
the ship

to plough through
storm waves
tilted on a burning
candle's tongue.

(ii)

But night
also grows old
with
the feathery light

of a shredded
morning
full of gray hairs
of mist,

icy fog breaking
my face
into tumbling
rocky ridges
still flipping out
wings of hawks

after sorrows
have devoured
all and all
of my chirping

chicks
after my eyes
on skin
and ears

had drunk
in one gulp
the crimson scarlet

fire the devouring
eye of a BIR soldier
erasing a breath
of life

with the trumpet-
blowing mouth
of a muzzle

flapping round
wings
for the kiss of death.