Cleansed By The Gods Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

In the breezily
warm nylon
of a lace
wallowing air,
he's been skipping

and sneaking
through clawy
trapping grasses,

as he creeps
with slithering lizards
and files of ants

through jumping
insects, as birds

chirp and twitter
off his staggered pace,
through a thick
sprawling bush

tentacled to take him
in various angles,
as he threshes
round balls of green swells

from pinnate leaves
amid tall stems

and vines. He rakes
through clusters
of grass and leaves,

but finds not even
the tail of a rat.

(ii)

No smell or spruce
or birch sign
of an animal carried
by a wind
to meander
into him.

The sun's spray
is more furry
and feathery

than the game he'd
like to dive
straight into his path.

With his clawy
fingers,
he rakes through
leaning grasses,

brushes his way
through reeds
and catches a grunt,
his ear very sharp.

(iii)

Beast, hop up
here into my hands.
Beast, swoop off
under my hands.
plunge into
the hooks of my claws.

And may a ray
of sun seal
your eyes, so I pounce
on you without a miss.

As the hunter
wraps himself up
in the stars
and sparks of wishes,

a brown furry
doe shows up

within his muzzle range,
but hand on trigger
only pops and barks off,

as the doe
wriggles in a flash
from a wound

and takes off down
a cliff, as he falls
and rolls down
into a thick deep marsh.

(iii)

Thickly clothed
in sticky dark
rosewood and mahogany
mud, he rises

from his fall
with a sigh sharp
enough
to slash off
a rising a shadow
cloudy wall.

The hunt is hollow
and empty,
the only game caught

the thick brown
cloud he wears
like a cave sorcerer.

(iv)

But the cloud
rises high into sky's
ceiling, clouds
roaring in a drifting storm

rumbling
with wet-mouthed
dogs pouring out
cascades of rain

to bathe him clean
before he carries
an empty hunting bag home.