Unvisited House Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

What house across
the bump of a sea's belly
haven't I visited,

if not my navel linking me
to the mother
of an orphaned world?

I, the lost child spun off
the lap of mother world
perched in the sun's borehole
on a goldenrod speck,

as foamy waves whistle
beneath the spear
of a wing-flapping tornado

shot to flip me to the door
to my hollowed-out self.

(ii)

What beard does my chin
carry, if not, gray spume
floating from the razed edge
of the jagged shore

churning a flint bubbling dust
in my room's twirling center,

a deep hearth exploding
into ashes of clouds.

Rising, rising beyond the door
to a horizon I cannot grasp,
its keyhole a bee
spiraled to sting me,
letting me sip honey
from the lips of a cloudy mouth.

By a sea wave arched to drop
with the sprayed curtain
of dawn, as the sea crashes
its smoky waters
against the cream wall of sun,

I find the sharp mouth
of a kingfisher
glued to a mummichog.
And hear in the squeal
of a gliding gale, a voice saying:

(iii)

You won't unbolt
the door
to you when a tide screams,
but you'll grab
the blade of a breeze

that cuts through
ridges of olive
and viridian waves

riding us through eroded furrows
and rocky walls of a sea floor.

(iv)

How the hidden mirror
of a sea floor
flips us back to water's surface
in the soft foam
of a davenport
in our living room

swinging a breeze
to touch down on sea's elastic.

Bawling at us
with
the strayed kingfisher
at sea we still see

in watery crystal trays
hanging down
our wet brows in their lakes.

O walls of a house
you've no orphan,
but a man
flapping a swan's wings
over sprayed water

snuffed out
and sniveled down
with cheek streams
the man has never seen,

as he grabs himself
in love's dancing mirror
at sea's bottom
beneath his drifting couch.