My Three Best Friends Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Doubt like pewter
over charcoal
paddles an obsidian canoe
under jade black clouds,

steering a ship
following no glimmer
of a light house
with no beacons
to the blue hole that sinks
vessel through a whirlpool.

When pulled
by doubt's maelstrom,
hug doubt as one
of your closest friends.

Kiss doubt on its lips,
when whispers ride mumbles.

Self-deceit, a firefly
on earth's floor
taken for a firmament's star,

blinds the eye
more than a meteorite's
splash, when sun
spins a flashlight

on a blind highway
with no traffic lights,
nor policeman,
nor beacons lining a dark cliff
into a swollen river.

(ii)

And when you're
pulled out
of sludge beneath a bridge,

sharp sight whisks you
off from the valley
that could have
swallowed you into
a deeper crater.

Life rolls out
the slithering highway
with no traffic signs,

as you tunnel through
doubt and guess,
until a breeze brushes you
with instinct,

the beast with no body,
but a hat
spinning round the head
to drill into you

the light of your three
closest friends -
me, and me and me
steered by the beast of instinct,

when you're clothed
in sable and onyx clouds,
your only ship
a bulk of night on blanketed waves.