A Thread Of Light Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A thread of light flips out
of an obsidian warp
bleaching into a fibrous moon.

Moon bounces on,
but flips over
into a cloudy sea bank.

Mid-day sun shines
in the deep mole hole,

but the animal's tail
still sinks into a tunnel
of beaning night,
every star twinkling.

Stars twinkle under a dead moon.
Stars grow sparks,
tiny swirling mosquitoes

Flicker in the smoke.
Wink in the running
parading gray columns of dawn
still rolling
and somersaulting over
into a dark chamber.

(ii)

Under a half-moon
wearing the cloak of night,
the thread of light

unwinds from a tailoring machine
pedaled by an eclipse
until the gray tail of a mole
dances reggae,

bobbing and jerking from side to side,
flames oozing out
of Yongabi's dark moon eyes

still trying to weave daylight
out of a warp of midnight.

All doors through curtains
And screens of pitch night cascade
into the lips of a nimbus

swooshing out a beaming crater
black tinder and coals
burning in a black blackening fire
with no cloud of light,

the mole only whisking a tail
as long as a hissing snake
until we find a sleeve of old cotton
choked with gem beads.

As sun in the mole hole
flaps more wings of night and soot,
I cut out the words Yongabi must hear:

"Come on, man
take this pick-axe and dig out
the mole's full torso,
the monster of truth in nimbus clouds".