A Rock Rocket's Take-Off Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(Inspired by the Dark Tower of Sao Tome)

(i)

Sky's melted glass
swooshes out
melted fading lace

and cream wax sprinkled across
the flip chart page
of a painter's whitish spray.

When does the black
rock-sculpted rocket
take off amid powder smoke

to fly flapping
green feather-woven wings
of palm tree weaves

to the world
above the bleached sky
in its white safari cloud hat?

(ii)

He stands spinning
a gaze around
his feet, his head raised

to a ceiling's bottom
across his broad shoulders,

a glistening stream
flowing down
his face miles below his brows
patched and hanging

from a cloud's carpeted seat,
as the wallowing
drops floated curtains.

(iii)

His pumps and nozzle
crawl through
sprawling palm trees
and braided grass and leaves.

As he takes off
in black fumes
blowing trombone
and beating drums,

the eye-twinkling
shrew rides
the laughing hunchback whale
through flipped-over
blankets of waves,

on the way
to Bom Bom Island Resort,
yellow lanterns
melting stars on earth,

as green flags of palm trees
and silvery ribbons
of splashed waves flip out fingers
after a woven hug.