A House Grows Into A Giraffe Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A pile of soaked and churned
and muddy stacks of earth,
these blobs of sun-dried bricks

pounded by devouring arrows
of rain, shot by bows from
the marksman of a sky not missing

by an iota of an inch a house,
and only that stone-hearted house

shrunk to itself, battered by slaps
of gale and hurricane
flinging machetes and axes of gusts.

The rain arrows and freehanded
sparkling spears flung from all angles
on rib- and spine-broken
walls caved and curved in
on their brittle flying skeletons.

(ii)

The rectangular bungalow
wore an overgrown wig of reeds
and thick locks of hair,
a high-heeled mountain
of grass and palmate leaves standing

on a four-legged house.
It stood on clay like a scarred donkey
ridden for rocky years.

After the rains, the house's roof
of braided and woven grass
was stretched out
by clubs and baton sticks of wind
into a mile-long giraffe neck

of debris sprinkled on and stitched
to shrubs and tall vines
sitting on a heavy backside of clay.

The house's tail hung down
with a question mark,
with which all neighbors shot themselves
with the puzzle, "why this house
and why a giraffe perched on mud? "