Flue Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Too much night during
the day to toss
me through tunnels

to catch the untainted faces
of my growling buddies,

as I rumbled and rattled out
with a sore
and rusty throat
unripe and rotten fruits

on trees of haggles
for the trumpet
that could blow off a storm.

The trees were so leafy
that splashes of green

blurred the lace
my fishing eyes
could not catch with a hook.

Their branches raised
high voices in the low tones
of cutting winds

that chopped up the very lips
to roll throughout tight haggles.

(ii)

I took to the bushes
and woods to avoid
the heavy traffic of more
spider-legged dealers

spilling out tentacled tropes
that pushed me
into trenches of ropy deals,
fibers sticking out.

Turning into flying hairs
from drifting heads
in thick gyrating clouds
on a stormy shore.

Stars often shone
on my track, as I ran up
and down the Main Avenue

and wrapped up
loose-ended deals

with thin wires breaking
at a cough's touch.

I wrapped up gold-ripening
sun with dark strands
of dawn

in a crater still sinking
into its core
before rising back
to sun-lit lips flushing out birds.


(iii)

Under the colorful wings
of singing robins,
eagle-eyed dealers handed out

to my leaking hands
freckles and potions of lightning
to lead me to a rainbow

hidden behind tall clouded
mountains shooting out
an umbrella shadow

full of smoky tubes of haggles
that fetched me no deal
but a burning towering chimney,

a flue I had
to drain and blow out
with the voice
of a wing-flapping bittern.