Flickers And Beams Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)


Boom! And a head-on
clash of stars drifts
a sky to skid off its wheels,

turning cannibal
to devour indigo
on a bunting's feathers,

cantaloupe and fire
melting tails
steered by scarlet
wings to brew

parrots and cardinals
and burgundy-drunk
teal arching

into the rainbow
drawing an arrow
to a spine-breaking bow.

A rainbow is sprayed
to toss off a horizon's
one-second flame

to explode and die,
leaking into an abyss.

(ii)

The sky expands its fangs,
devouring indigo clouds
trailing pink patches,

cantaloupe and fire
steered by scarlet
wings to brew

parrots and cardinals
and burgundy-drunk
teal arching

into the rainbow
drawing an arrow
to a bow
to toss off a horizon's
one-second flame.

(iii)

A beamed ray
in a twirl,
the fireworks
of a peafowl's tail

flipped out
to tumble stars
from the nebula -

blown out
and squeezed in
to the brightest bowl -

gives the rainbow
a turn to fly
on a parrot's back

as it winks
with a fast spray

erased before
it is hatched across
a sky leaving

a cracked, twisted-in
shell spreading
into a cream cloud's wing.

(iv)

When a cloud
falls on a petal
with a rainbow butterfly

to swell the color
of a floating mid-air,

the roof of a flower
leaks with hue
built by star and firefly,
cool sparks
from a blacksmith's bellows,

when pedaling feet
brew the glow

to melt a steel rod
with a rainbow,

as the rod is twisted
into a new wing to fly
with bright birds.

(v)

Of all beams
flickered in
an eye's blink,

the chameleon's
shoots off stars
and flames
to change attire from a closet,

spinning a painter's brush
breeding
paint pots
in a painter's hand
to spray an armor

and the shell
to wall in

a snail's smooth
body no mascara
can plaster

into a smoother
hotter beam.

For the hottest beam
from a spitting
crater's mouth

spills a rainbow
cooling off into
a crocodile back's rock.