Always Look Back Racing Forward Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Race to the flailing, galloping cinnamon clouds
building hills behind the woods in overgrown hair.

Fly to the sky horse jumping out of
the dandelion mass to choke apalises
and finches in swinging flying homes.

Have you not heard me in the growing hum?
Do my words fall on wooden ears in the din,
talking papery leaves chasing dry broken
flakes of reeds? Dust drifts from cascades
of reddish winds gliding over low unshaven shrubs?

Scurry through the tawny and green
grass shrugging off slithering smoke.

Dive down the umber valley below a blowing
tortilla wind waving caramel ribbons
above flakes a and a butterfly-invaded path.

Race forward like a flying sea gull, but look
back with curving winds, but dash through swords
of gale and storm. Who beats drums behind
the hills, or do these gongs fall from a broken sky?

Rush on, rush on, but always look behind,
for as you chase your shadow, a wind chases you.

The chasing wind and shadow on a carpet
of grasses also talk to you, as you squirm
and writhe out of bags of walking fog. And when sun
pierces tree tops, more shadows shower
the narrowing track to the yellow-a-red spot
you do not know, as a light gray smoke strokes you.

(ii)

Where are the voices sailing from with songbirds?
Who sings verses from a babbling stream?

What chokes the voice of a barking dog
in the whistling storm handing over its flag and ribbons
to drums breaking through tree ceilings in the knoll?

What cocks read the hands of a breaking clock,
as frozen time rolls into an eclipse,
the sun still singing a beaming shimmering song,

as a wave of village folks storm me from
my burning heels, my toes feeling cobblestones
biting and pinching with love's baby teeth,

a young man pulling forward to my heels,
his voice ringing like a sharp lance, tearing
through the antlered bell of a swelling sky:

"The village has been given a clean shave,
yellow clouds and flags devouring a meal of houses,
mooing cattle and bleating goats
building hills of debris on choked streams".