Loom Weaver Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I did not hear
a sharp,
loud sternutation
from
a screaming
mouth.

But the sky
has sneezed
again,
with a quiet pushing force.

Shooting down
thick threads
from unfolding
dropping cream balls
and yarns,

spools unwinding
thin threads
to dive down in dashes

and dots,
as I lay back, a dot.

My quill
falters on the page
of a bright day

flipped over
to the straight white strokes
and slanted lines

of a child leaning
to write
with a trembling hand

on cream sheets
and sheathes of air,

as it snows,
daisy squiggles and needles.

And feathery
arrowed tails
of more snow
hang down

with strands of weaves,
as a cloud
of rhinorrhea spills
and settles,
the sky's throat still itchy.

(ii)

A white-sleeved tree
stands,
the only bedraggled weaver

not scratching
its arms
to toss off ashes
and froth
from piling snow.

But tree the weaver
chews
a long-beaked pipe.

Blowing and puffing out
spirals of smoke
to chain up
with thin strands

of hairy threads
that flow from stretchy
weaves of snow

down the shoulders
and back of air.

(iii)

Sky has sneezed out
snow,
a tree in the breeze
smoking
a hoopoe-beaked pipe

to hurl down
spirals
of smoky cream nylon
white threads

on a white
chunky wool jut rug,

the carpet
of snow sprayed
on a new floor,

the loom weaver
spraying gobs
of clotted paint
flying down
to give it bumps,

as he pulls and stretches
the last stitch
on a bushy, shrub-ridden rug.