Beast Of Silence Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Floating between the lift
of an apartment building
and the deaf goggling
curb by the parking lot has spun

my new world, planted me
in my grazing field, a goat tethered
to grass to ruminate life

in an undulating grass field of silence,
where I plant deep-rooted trees
into a mulch of crawling stillness,

creeping leaves and vines of thought
climbing walls to towers held by the tongue,
the quill that rolls on paper

grinding bunches of grass. Bleating
the day out, as if air's whispering
silence has lost its voice.

As if the ringing whipping
hand of silence is yet to stretch out
another bleating field, where I,

the shallow-throated goat drooling
like a baby will soon find
my way back to the womb's world.


(ii)

Night in a stretching cot, a roof standing
on four pillars, is who I am,
what I spin what swirls the air we wear

doing nothing, saying nothing
but steering a ship in a silent sea, only
sun and moon talking to each other.

My quiet room blows an elephant's trumpet,
swells its walls into a trunk
and tusks pulling me out from the grip of a lion

yet to track down a purring beast
lurking in the corner of my room's jungle.

Chase the corona virus, pull it out
of my tesseract of silence towing an elephant.