Cornered Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(message from a dying man)

(i)

Closing up to my heels,
as I totter in clouds,
a lurking cliff raises its head
to a soft slope

and sinks into the deep
hole whizzing into
a rocky bottom, a floor
ending life, when eyes
flash off lightning

to slash swift breath
into a past
in threads and shreds.

(ii)

How do men get
to the rocky floor
with no door
for a climb back into life,

when and abyss's speed
can no longer slam
on any brakes, an engine
turning on rotors
clogged in bog and slog.

Let a tree bow low
with a branch I can grip,
as I glide on rails
of half-breath, every twig
slipping off in a fast gale.

Let a vine fling its arms
at me, when I still carry steam
in my breath,

and a breeze runs me
through life's final corridor
veering
into the stropped edge
of a storm's flash,

the sharp flame that cuts
through bones and nerves,
as I dog it.

(iii)

I have whizzed through
a hole of air
like a fleeing swift over
the swollen mountain
of a rising storm wave,

but seen no route
to the falcon
that could have
speeded my trip back to life,

when a thunderbolt
fell on me like a baobab log -

and I sank with the tree
into its roots
deep down earth's mantle
with no ladders
to flip me back to earth's floor.