Cracks In The Night Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Cracks in the pitch night
widen to half
and quarter-moon-lit spaces
on light-broken faces
and floating dim silhouettes,

only stitched chirps
beginning to wear full-bodied whispers.

The downhill sloping night
screeches without slamming
on brakes, only wind
howling with a drawn-out flute

in the flowing sliding alto
of moments drifting to the edge
of cascades, where sky's
abrupt showers jump down

to earth tapping
the leather lid of gravel and sand
covering the holes
that trapped us, as we traversed a scratch,

a shaky bridge in broken beds
to doors by a river of another day
drowning us before we tumble
into the desert to drain us

out the river-swollen waters
that dragged us to the grassy shore
of a dawn still tightening its eyes
for another dose

(ii)

A car's slammed door
in the lead parking lot cuts through
the smooth back
of an onyx night losing its hue

to a lone star sprinkling silver
steadily across a coal blanket
drifting to unveil the gold patches
of a crept-in dim dawn.

Where were the latecomers
still bouncing out
of their car planted in its webbed feet
floating on the laky rain-hit lot?

Why are unknotted moments so light?
Why is life so tight,
when a piece of far-flung daylight
yet carries no bird to whisper

the world out of the tunnel
of its wrecked train, cars and wagons
wriggling out of the same rails,

on which we snored
and rumbled with choked throats
under dry blankets?

(iii)

The downhill ride to dawn
sweeps off banged
and chirped car doors, as we bounce
in broken beds sighing

in the crocodile mouth of a morning
stretching its arms
to angles of a piercing sun

not as still as the cracks
that flung us back,
ship shanks, as we waste
in beds with no strings

and feathers of a bird-tailed
muse to tie up
the loose voices of sparrows.