A Barking, Growling Dog Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A snarling racing
thumping
engine
floats through
moon's spray,

sleeping
travelers
stretching out
limbs
like mantises

attacking
the spread prey
of morning
rays bouncing in.

Stony travelers
stretch
themselves
into snakes

biting
off the pulp
of distance

they've
turned into,

grinding
bone
and muscle
into the powder
of a gray day

bearded
with flint ashes,

the glow
of a pink flamingo-
lit night having
pecked off

every bright star
of their frame
twisted into
a dying darkening
tottering spark.

(ii)

A barking
growling dog
gallops
hops through
lurking
soft holes,

grinding travelers
into crickets
to chirp

in their cloak
of distance
pulling eyes
to the smoldering
ashes of a town

trailing
swaying necks
in the bus
trailing the viper
of a road

leaving the tail
of a stretchier viper
that swallowed
them in Detroit,

as they raced down
to Miami,
a growling howling
viper spitting them

out of the entrails
of the gray hound bus
that chewed
them into a pulp,

but couldn't swallow
them, as they
ballooned into grins
and cackles,

the racing groaning dog
now yelping,
as it slows down
to a dragged
screeching halt,

the hound no longer
hunting for distance.