A Bush Of Wild Flowers Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

In the bush
of yellow wild flowers,
a bunch of stickers
piling up
flapping wings.

The shrub grows
with my oil lamp
still talking,
still coughing.
O sneeze gently.

All are sleeping,
all chirping
with crickets' night song.

And late moon's sigh
dragging on
to silence's shore.

(ii)

Petals of notes
roll off moth powder
in quiet rising
spills of dust

from the burning hearth
of shrubs,
piles of scripts
building up mountains.

Sinking valleys
where pens crawl
and croak.

And jump off
to hide beneath
crawling grass of floss
and spider legs

that escaped a roaring
cleaner's bite
and loud deep gulp,

as he spat out
a rock-bodied chunk
from an overfull mouth.

(iii)

Only a tall stem
of an unlit lamp
shoots up
its slim body,

yellow leaves of light
floating off
a butterfly of an oil lamp
stammering, biting lips
with a quiet engine's thrust.

In the thick bush
of a cubicle
with stony eyes,

all else sleeping
with frog snores amid
the hiss of lurking
snakes slithering across
silent corners

of a bushy floor
of littered grass of paper
flapping sleepy wings.

(iv)

In the bush
of creeping grass
and wild flowers

rays shooting across
curling snakes
of a poet's snoring scribbles,

all are sleeping,
hissing in deep holes,
where eyes
and head are tossed off
stony shrouds

and drowned
in the babbling singing stream
of quiet sleep,
all snoring in the bush
of a cubicle,

only a butterfly
flapping wings,

as it flies off a poet's
blinking lantern
on a snoring desk.