Horny Folks In The Streets Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)


From a hooting train of horny folks
poking the creeping day
under showers of light, night
collapses on me in broken bricks

of myself, no girder holding me
in rusty rods and thin wires.
Night is falling on me, folding me up

to the edge of culverts with stubs
of folks having smoked off
themselves down to cinder and ash.

They've whiffed off threads
of spidery smoke no knife can cut
off or split into barbs and barbules

any smaller than the feathers
building our bones that have fled.

My bones are rachis standing
on the hollow legs of calamus.

(ii)

City skylines from my room's
cream walls tumble on me
with street screams taking

over silence-wrapped flocks
of birds flying off through
moon-polished glistening calm routes

to soot trees bowing
to soft winds shaving them.

Night has not yet worn its full
hat spinning on the neck
of half-light pushed off
by the woody hands of storm.

Its no yet night- and why
should night cruise in before dusk?

Jade black cloaks float on
behind the golden light
of a sunny beach lightening
into splashes of dawn.

In my bed, let me stretch my feet
down to the beach, birds
taking off and landing over wild waves.

On a sea shore bench
drifting to my bedside, I bask
in a sun asking why man
cannot do better than birds.