Burning Cigarette Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The melting
cloud-powdered
tailor
has slipped
off
to the restroom.

How his dim
stretched-out
cigarette
hanging
in the ashtray slit

still smolders
to smother
the smoker's
ton of clouds

chewing off
his old loans
into smoke

grinding off
a gabbro rock
of gaping
barking bankers

into ash clinging
to air's fibers
with crab hands.

(ii)

The quietly
burning cigarette
blinks
from its lock
of gray hairs

and puffs off
white threads
and
shredded fibers,

more
smoke spirals
dissolving

in the breeze
with scarlet
fleeting stars

from the clinging
gray stem
in brittle scars.

(iii)

Outside
the dim
roaring
caterwauling
bar,

the dimly-lit
spinning sky
is baking
itself out

into a light
brown
and grayish
drifting

crust, its coat
flying off,
fruit flies hopping
to dart off,
leaving

a tawny
and bisque film
still burning
with scarlet
blinks.

(iv)

O burning
cigarette,
smolder. Redden
your eyes
into crimson
patches.

Let the smoke
of your tip
rise with thinner
fibers

into the bar's
towering
ceiling dissolving

growls and groans
into a floating
tawny ceiling
burning

with black hawks
pecking
at a burning
cigarette

in scars, as
the stormy tailor
dives back
from the restroom

to see
his skeleton
hanging
in the slit

of an ashtray
eating off
life's cactus flesh
and specks
of brittle bones.