Pain Under A Tulip Tree Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

In the zigzagging wind,
a tulip tree
opens into a book,

closes back
into stringed bibles
of many shades,
thorns
of saw-edged leaves
and flowers

placed on a silver
or alabaster
layer of breezy air,

every leaf flipped
over to show
the page of a sniveling
cream flower.

A breeze tilts
a gob of petal
to drop like a silvery
bead of pain
from a streaming eye.

(ii)

Red-ribboned
braids
over a scarlet
scarf spirals

a rhododendron
of creeping
cuts and deep wounds

in the jumping air
of feathery hair
like a bird
flapping wings
to a harbor,

as it's bitten
by a sharp-nosed
stone
from a catapult's mouth.

(iii)

She sits drowned
in the deep barrel
of a painter's red hue
overflowing
herself with pain,

red petals
of a tulip flower pulling
in memories

of her brother
dragged off
by khaki hands sprayed
by mahogany
splashes of a scuffle.

Her brother whisked
off, mouth open
like the red hollow
of a rose dusk
sitting below a garnet cloud,

as he smirked
with a wince and laugh,
as she saw
only his two lime eyes
rolling like stars

in a moonstone night,
but it was daylight
full of the colorful swirl
of life still rebuilding
a collapsing wall of night

saying aloud
with the lady's mouth:

My brother's lion
roars in his
million-starred smirk.