Edge Of June Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

On the bumping bumpy
edge of June, I drift
with the flip of a compass

across stars of months
in syzygy. And I drift, marching
on the ice slates
in the hot tunnel
of a spiraling crawling year.

Why not wear
a crown of stars in the middle
of sea sailing sea
drifted to its drifting edge,

where I ride on wheels
of sunny swallowing air,
earth not yet chewed

into a wallowing mass
of white feathers, a cream bird
chasing a white snow tail?

(ii)

The circle hatched
by a twist of the hand
has flung me over

to a drifting slippery year's bank,
the bridge to a new year

still swinging in a braying
galloping wind
on time's rolling seesaw,

as another circus of a year,
points a broken finger
to the windmill

of misty time galloping
on unstudded boots

in a cornfield of grains counted
in diamonds
and mud-coated pebbles.

(iii)

Where's the pencil's tip
planted in December's tail,

that galloping horse
flogged into a stone, whipped
with snakes of leather

still nibbling off the flabby
muscles of a groggy year?

Where's my pencil tip,
that quill from the fleeing beast
lying on an anchorage.

Pull your belt,
swim in cushions of your seat,
but stand by the drifting ferry
that may not

toss you off to the shore of January,
still engulfed in the wave
of a compass's spinning needle.