Fire Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I pluck a stargazer's eyes
to melt a cloud
of memory into a river
dissolving in the marsh of time

only a burning sun
can set ablaze to bleed ashes,
my new blanket keeping me cold.

Memory is the blue-white fly
of match stick
setting a stone of past moments
and years into a blazing
fire growing gray feathers.

In a fire I blow
the hibiscus' trumpet under
a begonia's flames,

wind-drifted arms of daffodils,
from which tongues
of fire ginger sprout and hurl arrows.

(ii)

As medallion and dandelion
wave flags above
bleeding red roses spurting out

sneezes and coughs
from a deep hole
of red-eyed winks

and strings of gold sparks
tie up bundles of loud sulks,

silent drums are choked
by sky rumbles,
as logs roll down hills of skies

to plunge into a river
with the thud
that draws out

a sword across the sky
to break a mahogany
and dark gray sky into shards.

(iii)

How many rocks roll
down sky
into a red hearth of earth,
when all is rusty
on a burning round table,

eagle-winged winners
crushing sparrows and warblers
in flames popping out
slurs and tropes that catch no sun,
no harvest grasses of stars,

but set a sky ablaze
with a smoky burning dawn
of life's circus
planted on a tree of fire
no one can climb.