A Stroll To My Core Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

On a pier stretched out
to an unmarked post
deep into the sea,
beyond undulations and hillocks
of waves rising to a peak

above the silver grassy
showers from towers
of watery light
breaking into shattered waters.

What cicadas at a crinking sea
without grass, without a lawn,
but raising hollow glassy slates
of wind-lifted water
breaking into grassy shards
that crawl and creep like silver grass.


(ii)

I rise and sink with waves,
as I plod on the swinging pier
of life splayed out
as seafoam mats, drifting, as I walk

and tip-toe on them to taste
the hangover of chores
half-completed, a quarter cut off
to float with debris
from shores eyes cannot catch.

I find myself strolling
to Core, life's inner shelter
at dawn cast to glow
and sprinkle beams
on a ruffled carpet of sea.

I stroll and stand to the yolk
of me hatched to spray
and spread out wings of sea gulls
to flap me along
my dosed walk on a quiet pier.

(iii)

Dawn spins a bouquet
waving beak-lipped
and wing-serrated flowers
in the crystal trunk
of a silver and flint cloud.

Smoky white rose petals
rise from the mist
of orchids. And the red petal
of a dogwood plant
carries red specks of dusk hue,

a patch drifting slowly
with a scribbled script bawling out:
"The Lord is lifted
to stand face to face with you".

(Iv)

At the thinning point of the pier
cutting off from its body
marked with a slanted bump,
the world ends here.

The world continues through
hilly folds on my bed,
as I sip every breath of air

with the petrichor of bees
and squeaking moths
stuck to buzzing palm leaves.

Stroke me, stroke me now,
as I edge closer
to the pier's bump

io fling me over
into sinking wet depths,
but I rise back to my room,

a mirror standing with me,
my forehead stained
with a cross of ash
from squeaking moths,

as life buzzes on
to a brighter
goldenrod flower
hiding a volcano's cave.