A Crashed Morning Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

What morning has crashed
with the clap trap
of knocks at the door, dawn
still wearing a dark woolen pullover?

A thunderclap drags
a rumble to the sea's spiraling belly
until a wave rises

with silver dreadlocks of water
and drifts to the edge of a bank.

What tumbling rocks have
dropped with a roar
hurled by the clawed machines
of a construction site,

as I break down
into pieces and ashes of me
in a burning bed
with no flame of sun,

and as thunder shoots
its Dane gun,
leaving dishes trembling
on a drifting porcelain slab?

An ibis in the woods
has also punched out its lungs

with a horn tearing through
the valley and shaven embankment,
sighing machetes of light sweeping
through trembling branches?

(ii)

My heavily draped room
beams with a deep night,

grinds every sound into silence,
my bed space full of pollen
from the rising
flowering plant of a bed.

Seeds of night sprayed
to grow night turning into the lowest
room of a cave.

My lamp stand grows
into a tree of bulbs
clustered with dark stars of night
lighting up only darkness,

a phoenix on a vase
spraying a soft burning flame
with wild fangs drifting me
grope to the window,

where I flip out my hands to heavy blinds,
tearing open a tunnel
and shower of late-morning sun:

My memento under my pillow
burns with missed meetings,

wheels of the day smelling
with screeching rubber on the street
rumbling and croaking with traffic.