Nisus Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I want to find
a formula
that can crush
pain into
the taupe dust
I trample on

to muffle
every thorn
and prickle,
every
hammering
fire mauling flesh,

grinding bones
into brittle bricks
and dust
for the dough

grilling flesh
deep
into skin
like a deep roast.

(ii)

Let burnt
sienna flip out
to me
a saddle hue

to trot on uphill
to that flower-bird
of a formula,

one shot
of an antibiotic
pulled
from a patch
of nimbus cloud.

Let a flower
in the clouds,
its roots
held by octopus
tentacles,

its branches
waved
by the fiery flames
of a bromeliad
and carried

to sky's core
by an arrow
of fire ginger rising

from the hearth
pushing
it through wind
spin the breath

that lands me
with hoofs
on pain's sharpest
needle to smash

flowering fire
into shards
tumbling from pain's
sky in creeping
spidery cracks.

At the gate
into a soothing cure,
let me knock
down a dangling bridge

to fly into
pain's hidden
stitch
behind the emerald
screen of a broad-
shouldered mountain

in the nerve
of my breath.