Nook Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(for AJB)


(i)

What glint blazes with a staying gaze,
a sheen of blooming eyebrows
weaving a thick night to land and roll

in paper glass layers and a typhoon
blanket doused with filtered sun
of strokes and fondles covered by a hat

from the breeze blowing
tall, a pyramid of smooth strokes
sinking down locks of hair
from arched branches of flowers

to shoulders rubbed with pillows
of flattened foamed palms?

A fire of memories burning
over mountains he flips over
to the thin soft tune of a robin?

(ii)

On what shaft of light
is a sticking touch mulched
to grip with gluing fingers
drifting out of bundles of stars

scratching out a place
for filled-in spaces
and plastered moments growing
garments for a soft whimper?

When a rotated flip builds
a boundary, palisades
sticking out leaves from a frog's gown,

when times croak and skip
over shrubs carrying linen

to breathe in rays from trees closer
to the bubbling volcano of love
flowing from heart's cascaded river

hurling over a violin of wind
planted to move legs
to an esplanade of sun flying in
through lattices of thick branches?

(iii)

In our rolling nook, I weave sheets
of breeze to grease dry desert spots
with your mutter and whispering birds -

to cover us with a petrichor
from a rainy absence leaving me

the glassy mist that rises over rails,
a horizon curving in on your bed
with a touchdown blowing a lilac trumpet.

Toss over to me more threads of sun
to weave a sheathe of reef knots
heating up slippery hands
and tightening woolly threads of fingers.

(iv)

O fasten your hands round my neck
with a sheepshank of love - guarding
the loops and curls and curves

of the fisherman mending a nest
for the fish that never strays,

when it's time to mend every gap
and hole with a satin weave.

When looped rustling winds
stray to pits in creeks and tap drums

through trees woven with
each other, branch arm to branch arm,
the sky turns an umbrella pillared by a hill.

(v)

By the beach of your cot
where every zephyr bounces up
with a bee's buzz to brew

a nectar of words muttered softly
into ears turned a vase
for your flowering breath,

your voice is a quiet stropped
lightning flashed
and stitched and flashed,

slashes on a slab of sky dripping
with patches of melting rainbows
over canaries singing

with the whispering river
gliding through rooted rock

by the feet of a tree
always weaving green leaves
for a fresh beginning
rising with a tornado from a cot's hearth.