Drums From Sky's Hollow Wings Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Birdy hollow of a dry day,
flap your wings
to fan funneled holes
of a hanging twill weave of air.

The big daisy- cream bird
of a day has expanded
floating and landing wings
of sunshine across

its armpit, all afterfeathers,
as air's vane thins out
into downy barbs over
dry earth parched by a hearth
of digging sunshine.

The stretched-out hall
of day, has been
a sprawling arena of daylight
with no front door

and no backdoor, but space
running from each edge
to a hollow desert of heat.

A tree of sun grows here,
its only fruits
scrolled leaves scorched
into brittle rolls

breaking into brittle specks,
as they drip to the ground.

(ii)

Bird of a powder day
floating along
its hollow wingspan

over a dry crackling
crater of earth,
O breaking carpet, O taupe mat.

How a hollow of dryness
deepens and sinks
into the mouth of a thirsty floor
calling out for water.

Let the umber cloud
grabbing
sky's ceiling bloat
into an ambling elephant nimbus

that trumpets loud
with a thunder
from a trombone

growing with snare drums
into the thumping engine
of a heavy bulldozer

grinding through a rocky
drifting layer of sky.

Throttle, throttle
the engine to steer sky's cistern
spun by the darkened clouds
of a bright rumbling day.

(iii)

How the dry temperament
of drifting sky
bumps into prodding nails
that splits it
open into deep leaking basins.


Pouring out thick silver
threads and wires
of slithering rain to churn earth
in thick coats of clay,
a desert having grown into marsh.