Climbing Feathers Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

As slip, your hands
giving way to a fall
into the flamy hippo
ambling for a bite

off your flesh, let a thrust
of breath balloon
you into the big bird
with staples and clips
on its gorilla grip.

On the slippery
rock of a canyon rising
wall, climb
with stuck snail grip.

Ape up and climb.
Shoot up;
fly up, creeping
higher with palmate leaf
palms
on a slippery plane,

rock-brushed fingers
and muddy flesh
brittle and scaly, bleeding,

but building up
firm phalanges
to hold and hug tight
with latex

from a stretched-up
tree trunk
of a canyon wall
with a spine of gabbro.

(ii)

Bodies glue
every pore to grow back
into grips
feeding crabs of palms
fat and sticky.

Bodies grow feathers,
as shoulders
spray out sparrow hawk
wings, but cannot fly.

Butts and soles
over a climbing chain
of folks -

O pull off key flags
from links and swivels
of tight muscles.

And climb,
mounting on the back
of a marbled
but slippery canyon wall

growing fangs
on its river-bathed feet.

(iii)

Climb. Let your fingers
glide on like snakes,
as you drift towards
cream and cotton air
falling down on you

with the serrated edges
of sunrays
waving its jack saw
over your mud-wet bodies

still growing hairs
and feathers of birds
whispering to you,
as you climb,

your arms and legs
a rhythm that doesn't die
with a rolling roaring
drumming thunder.