A Cloud's Fairy Tale Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The folks
of a country
burst out
from
onyx sheets

and a taupe
cloud
of flight
from blight.

They jumped
down
in files of ants
from wood
and sable anthills

flowing
quietly
in an columns
and
zigzagged rows,

as they
tottered
and wriggled
across
the sepia

and crimson
clouds
of their homes
and fallen
crawling folks.

They dropped
on earth
in balls of tan
dust and gusts

rolling into
culverts
and deep gorges

in fleeing
valleys, women
and children

in hideouts
housed
by trees and shrubs
amid tall stems.

And flaming
flowers
and animal
tails growing
hairy vines.

(ii)

They dropped,
sprinkled across
and spread

into ridges
melting
them into
into beige air.

They flew
with the birds,
a heavy
scarlet

still hovering
over their
broken shoulders

in feathery
fog and mist

flapping
and preening
its wings

across rising
taupe dust
and graphite smoke.

(iii)

Now the crowd
of clouds
have given rise

to trudging
boots
spinning tornadoes

amid tall stems
of flowers
shrugging off
dust

and the hot
comet
that has dropped
to roast
children and ashy
nonagenarians.