A Den Of Silence Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A pitch
and soot
curtain
drops
on air's grunts

and murmurs
to seal
a fenced-in
quietness.

After his
guests have
melted
out of sight,

his cottage
draws in
only a cold

and chilly
veil
of silence

clothed
in night
even when
daylight

is as bright
as an
asteroid,

when
dim slim
shadows

and
silhouettes
of birds
fly over

the veil
of his home,

a whorl
housing
a snail of him

not sticking
out
any of his
his tentacles

folded
back
into his shell,

his mantle
squeezed
back to nestle
with his tail.

(ii)

Like a solitary
sandpiper
in its expanding
marshy glen,

he wanders
throughout
the day

across the flat
space of his
home grown

so cold that
he digs a cave

all day deep
enough
to turn him
into a skunk

devouring
the air
of an
onyx night

spinning a den
for him
to capture
low growling

and groaning
voices he
hears,

clothing
himself in
quiet grimaces

folding his
face into a frog's
croaking back.

He then
dives into
a low cackling
spree

in the fortress
of his silence.

(iii)

Often he beams
brighter
In his mole hole
and skin,
as he spends

all day
ferreting out
earthly
layers of his

forefathers,
building
an underground
graphite
night tunnel

in his deep
inner self

to connect with
lion-breathing
figures

to mold him
with a cloak
to warm him up
in his silence.