Air's Dark Cloud On Earth Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Air devours air and spits out
speckles and wounded specks
of bleeding dust

in drifting lattices of dust steering dust
and crawling dusk in bright daylight.

Who is slicing brown air
into flying pieces
of a cold brick hearth?

Who spins the rolling sun
into bleached daylight ringing
a bell over a strayed home
splayed in the hairy chest of a street?

Mid-air is woven
into amber and sandstone,

as sprawling cobwebs hide
limping spiders gripping
ladders of mint cream
cascades of lavender blush.


(ii)

In the sinking hollowed-out
air, the sun shines
with sprinkled and broken light -

jumping arm-stretched
feathery rays spun and swirled
into a large scar
of brunette and carob earth,

O gravel and sand-woven
mat bearing the dust-rippled silhouette

of the half-life of a woman
woven into spirals
and thickening strands of dust.
overtaken

A light gray cloud
dims into a graphite strip
and shoots its shadow

to land and sprawl
on a dirt road, a larger rust cloud
swelling over tawny feathers
whistling with poking beaks
flying without feathers.

(iii)

Sun fights with chiffon
and alabaster broomsticks of drizzles

whipping air with rain
drying up into bouncing sands
and dust
before it drops
to spinning umber and tortilla clouds,

the earth a woven
handicraft
of dust growing shrubs of dust

over a half-life,
a woman spread out,
splashed fog
and filtered ash by the flame
of a five-month old,

climbing a tree of air
hanging over a mother
a thousand miles off her inch-close baby.