Aircraft's Crash Landing Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A racing gale cut
into pieces
of tottering breath.

Fuel passage stalled.
Breath too is ground
into powder and dust,

smoke and fumes shot out
from the chimneys
of our towered nostrils
taking in gusts of breath.

Veer left. Unbolt eyes
from your chest and head
for another corner

you must cut
with a jumping, bouncing
and cartwheeling nerve,

your hands driven
by buffalo horns
on the steering wheel

and a lemur's tail
from your back stroking you.

Fuel flow stalled. Plane
carrying the world
slips off to a cliff's edge.

No more space on
the runway, but sand
floats on the beach

unfolding its grainy
and feathered mat for a swirl
of dancing landing.

(ii)

Soft waves roll out
sleeves of flying sprinkles
stretching their arms

with nylon and silk breezes
to clothe the world
bubbling in its own heat.

On a conference table,
storm and waves swell
into a politician,

head in flames
from a volcano's mouth,

as he holds out shoes,
their soles
landing on the table
to drive a point home

in the crash-landing plane
of the world still rolling
its stony tinder.

How a hearth of barking
and roaring passengers
breathes out embers of a fire,

smoke and ashes
having dissolved into air
settling on starry cackling teeth
chewing life off

in sprayed butterfly grins
drawing down curtains
on ice blocks
and chills of fright.