A Day Of Rumbles Poem by Felix Bongjoh

A Day Of Rumbles
(i)

From the huge
stretching mouth
of a rumbling
runway, I rumble

up the first floor
of the airport's
main elephant building,

as I drag loud-
mouthed
wheels tracking
my rattling steps.

In the waiting
hall, the world
rumbles,

suitcases
rolling, trombones
in their mouths.

Carts too grind
the floor playing

rumbling bassoons
and staggered
contrabassoons,

as air swells
into various tones
of rumbles

amid croaking
soles of shoes.

(ii)

Snailing baggage-
handling waddling
carts quack

with the flowing
rumble of wheeled
flat decks crawling

long-tailed jackasses
of rolling metal
backs bowed to sniff

soles buzzing
in the whirr of shoes.

The carts
flap their drifting
wide wings
of crowing cocks,

as wheels
blow cocks' trumpets,

licking cemented
screeching floors
with heavy tongues.

(iii)

Rumbling from
the feathered
airport terminal
to the last train

station drowned
in rumbles,

I step down
and deeper down
to another floor
of buzzing birds,

rumbling cassowaries
tracking trailed
squeaking suitcases

bulldozing me
up a staircase
to a rumbling street.

(iv)

The unclothed street
rumbles with flutes
and mumbles

under the heavy clouds
of a stormy sky.

But the albatross
wings of my
lightning legs fly me
to my hotel room,

the highest floor
of a ten-story building

rumbling with rain
drops on the roof.