Blisters Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Blisters bawl
and bark
at us
louder than dogs

about how much
pus full of cream
clouds
and ether burn us,

as we wheel
flesh and bones
into floating,
silent flames
of a crimson dusk

burning light
into dusk's sky
baked brown
and rolling redwood

burnt into
salty water
on skin's watershed.

They spin geysers
of water
man drinks
from hard stone
and rock.

(ii)


They plunge us
into a sea
of salty soup
spinning body

into choked
rocky breath,
as skin spits out

vermilion
and maroon gobs
of blood,

when a deluge
of spiked pain
brews bubbles
and black berries

on gabbro's
skin roaring
to hold water
in sods
and quiet bubbles

ballooning
into white grapes,
as sun
swells with clouds.

(iii)

And the sharp
prickling depths
of round balls
sink deep

boreholes of pain
growing
burning-hot
cottages

harboring us
with burrowed
moles nibbling
off our flesh and blood

on rocky palms,
arrows on soles
sinking
into phalanges.

And we wince out
an onyx night,
our pain
sinking
into mahogany blood,

as we dive
into a sea
of foamy bubbles
to swim
and lick the sharp salt
of needles

swallowing
us; burning us
with the sun's corona

settling to melt
in our throats
gulping down pain.

But the bridge
to the past
doesn't collapse
at the door

to the surgeon's scalpel
blanketing
blisters with breeze-
blowing blankets.

They snail off,
crawling
with scorpion's feet.

They rubber-stamp
themselves
with scorpion's hands,

leaving spiders
of scratches
on memory's cellophane paper

stuck and glued
with casebearers'
tentacled clipping limbs,

as hillocks of pimples
grow bumps
into mountains
we climb,

tumbling
and breaking our necks,
melting us
into dungeons of clouds
shackling us.