Bones Of Rock Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

River freezes into rock.
A run of indigo ink
on satin and matins, swollen dirge
on a bow tie crow

flying with the red cardinal -
O splashes of red ink
flying with fire finches on torn sheets of sky.

The rolling poet's page
stumbles against sky curtain
drawn down
on a cascade's shriveled face:

Pistol-headed tadpoles jump
with rocket tails flipped out
a bloody dictator's
mouth lodging islands of men,

arms stretched out
for more threads
in the desert-dry pockets of the man,
who licked fire for dinner,

eyes bulging out
catapulted
pebbles and cobblestones.

(ii)

The giant mushroom
stretches hibiscus arms,
an umbrella
flipping out a Cinderella dome
on dancing roller skaters

mushrooming gliding space,
tilting marshes of air,

flipping over millipedes,
dots of coagulated chips,
pebbles, blood rain
on banana and cocoyam leaves,

the flattened saucepans,
from which tongues

lick love in beads and rosary balls
served with a priest's murmurs.

(iii)

Above the alley of a valley
devouring
the lambs that sang with drools
from four-month-olds

melted into the mist of a kiss
that flowed into a lake,
and writhed
out of a dimple's gouge.

Thawed into fog
sinking down chest pockets,
ball pens
flying out the sparrows

Every drip of a drool
the spar over a bar
draining out
torches from drunken men's eyes

rolling into broken stars
stringing
like eagle-clawed viruses,

as Sahara
and Kalahari dust particles
drip and beep
on nights of a million stars

into a crystal plate in a Californian
train-rolling restaurant.

(iv)

Why should a mountain of guns
not grow into elephants
tramping with babies and toddlers
on their mattress backs,

camel-high saddles
on giraffes driven by pilots
of the Blackbird

carrying no black birds,

but chips of charcoal
and fireflies in dark jackets
from an unfiltered fire,

when earth is crater bowl
swooshing out smoke
from an old man's pipe, hanging down

the dry lips of a chimney
rolling streams of white flowers through air,
white flags floating on broken poles.