A Hovering Winged Dusk Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Hopping outdoors's ceiling
digs deep further up
into the wandering strip for a trip
diving into silver heaven.

And flattens out into a huge plate.
It flattens out to an edge
of sea horizon stitched to sky weaving
cotton silver mats of floating sky.

Dishing out blobs and sprays
of hue, the only axes
of evening wind to hew logs
off the shoulders of a heavy day.

Heavy in deep barrels of fatigue,
stiffened out in trenches
of ourselves in hotel beds, ringing
only bells of woody mattresses

scratching our bellies
with grasshopper limbs chirping on yawns
and hand stretches searching
for a nap that has fled

into a suspended city of smoldering clouds
and flames and flowers and stars
over a balcony of men clothed
in a nightly garment of dimness from within.

(ii)

At last, bulldozers from a numbness
pull and push us
to the city's waterfront,
a dancing lake flapping wings

to draw in a hovering winged dusk,
the blown-out mushroom
of an umbrella swelling its canopy

to toss a cap over on our heads,
our legs stretching us up
to bite off and sip the pink candy
of a dusk flipping out
a golden-breasted bunting.

(iii)

Dusk over a lake grows more blown-out
birds and butterflies,
comet moths piloting sky's jet,

as air hostesses sail down
to our bench by a lake side

to dish out more colorful salads
of dusk to stretch themselves
out on our laps, blue canaries served

to sing the sky-splashing song
of a clear-winged butterfly
parading weaver finches to sit
on the crown of a red-winged grasshopper.

(iv)

Let's leave the blown-out dusk
behind us to pull
the sky's edges to the big grasshopper
to hop us back to our hotel rooms,

our light legs, winged wings
of their own, sailing us back
to balconies with no logs and rocks,

but birds and butterflies
to untie the sisal ropes of our fatigue
into a light basket of fruits
we've picked from the tall tree of a dusk.


Crafted from old notes and photos, Antananarivo,
Madagascar, December,2006