Duck Cuts Off The Beach Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)


Will this jalopy make it
to the fleeing beach?

The car is blowing flutes,
birds whistling in it,
as we try to crank it up,
running only into sputters

and hisses, no snake
crawling out. No warbler
flying out of warbles,

as time sizzles in a muggy morning's
cauldron drying up
with a stretching wind flapping
the wings soft-toned robins.

The car is playing a contrabassoon,
the deep voice of a torque
spun by fighting eagles

pecking at each other, as time
rolls on smooth wheels

to the beach still stretching out
its hands to hug us
under dressed in a friendlier air,

the blaze of a hue spun
and filtered
by a breeze whispering through
the blue flowery clouds

rolling on a soft gear to brighter
silver and pink colors.

(ii)

The car chortles and chuckles,
but slaps off
a whistle with a roar. It rumbles
louder than a gale,

whose wings swoosh out
into the buzzing voice
of winds bowing to a tree's
singing ribbons of green leaves

bobbing with shades of green,
as the sun rolls out
a tower of lace and cotton sky?

(iii)

Who spins a bright sky,
if not the galloping horse
of a strong gust

with the smooth voice
of an engine
frizzling and hissing for a start,

but the snake bites
off the sound to mumble

with the car out of the garage
and stutters to a complete halt,
no whispering bird

flapping wings for a take-off
to the sky of a screeching street.

Let's listen to the engine's
new squeaking and twittering songs

snatching from a beach
the sharp voices and horns
of shrieks and owls filling the garage
with clouds of a far-flung beach,

the engine only squeezing
its throat into a duck's quack
cutting off the road

to a beach behind trees drifting
with back-pedaling mountains.