Heavy In My Storm Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Heavy in my
storm,
bulldoze me
up a mount

of glistening trees
to bleed
with Christ's red
apples

spinning
to the edges
of sun-parched
gold leaves,

whistling
and rattling,
but never

dropping off
mother leaf,
father wing of wind
blowing
with a mantis'

stormy legs
and bulging thighs,
the only wheels
left of me
to ride life's air,

when night
settles
on a bonfire's
gaudy flames

and a thickening
obsidian
and sable night,
when sooty
times tumble on me

like a giant
black hawk,
its spinning wings
the rotor
of my bleeding engine.

(ii)

When blood-
stained
thick-feathered,

double-breasted
cormorants
stitch themselves
to sail

with a dark
murmuration
of crows

over my head
still lodging
poking fingers
of stinkwood,

let me crawl out
of my shell
of a brewing fire
ignited by the love
of red palm nuts
of small deep wounds

still sinking
arrows
into my flesh.

(iii)

Where's a breeze
by a rambling
sea shore
bawling out refrains

from parrot mouths
of light's waves
hurled off
by storm waves,
when sky grows

a red night
of dawn
still riding on slashes
on flesh,

when my hand
stretches out

with the gold
of bundled
dimes delivered
to a beggar

with a smile
that ignites sky
with
a mid-day sun,
the boat-tailed grackle
still piercing

a phainopepla
with midnight's needle
of a gaze.