An Old Woman's Flame-Chewed Kiosk Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Old mother, flee now O flee off
with your jumping frolicking toddler.

Flee now galloping
before the strides of racing flames
swallow all the gems of your life.

Melt off behind the clouds
spreading black butterflies of cinder
bundled in basket bouquets
of lead and fossil smoke.

Spread out tentacles of light
to build a mist that wraps
you up until you find shelter

in air's deepening hole
stretched out to the door
of a breathing light.

You've found a castle
here in a cottage's hideout,
leaving behind you
a burning world in feathers.

(ii)

Thousand-fingered swimming smokes
breath out graphite clouds,
as dark gray birds of cinder hover.

Rubble of a broken bony umber
cloud, an open kiosk
chewed and spat out by flames.

The rising tall flowers grow fast
and roar in the thick
fumes and curls of hairy smoke.

A dark giant builds up
from dusty choking smoke.

He raises with punching hands
more gaudy ribbons flowers

melting into a late dusk fire
rolling a burnt high sky
to drop and growl on earth's floor

tiled with brittle parches
of cindered debris creeping on and on.

(iii)

The giant melts into red
clouds, flipped over - stretching out
into mustard and dandelion hands

spiraling over umber smoke
brewing and breathing out

tons of gold, canary and daffodil
flowers flipped out
of his quaking bobbing hands
to feed the tawny street
with sprawling dark wounds.

The street crawls with beaming
faces returning from hideouts
not spared by black
cindered petals ground into smoke

to powder their faces
with sooty night

under a silver glow
breathed out by a sun
on its axis of shine.

Where a poor woman sat
all day counting rosary beads,

as she sold out golden grains
of groundnuts dug out
from the deep, deep earth,

where life finds
a snail shell sheltering life
in a winding river
flowing into a stretch of wind.