How Far The Sun Goes Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

How far does the sun
go to chase night
creeping into its walled borders,

when the flattened world
has run out of nook,
the only half-night with gears
to sit on the fence
of hawk-swarmed skies?

How far does the sun
sail to gulp down
a late gray dawn crawling back
through outbursts of thunder?

Bawling at silver light
slashing the thin flesh
of a cold hearth bottom

settling on a mound
of morning collapsing
back into night.

As it preens and screens off
flames from flying stars,
when the world on a rock
of Mount Everest

spins eyes to fall over the depths
and star-clinging heights
of Arizona's bloating Flagstaff.

(ii)

And I raise my head
to the sky striding to rip off
a flame from the fire
of bunched stars stuck to glow

out of a tapered cauldron
bouncing with hot bubbles
in a light-leaking sky,

every piece of oozed-out showers
a blinding wall of night.

Drowning in rivers flowing off
to mountains and cliffs of light.

(iii)

Cascades of rays brew
tree-armed-and-fingered rays
infiltrating like rows
of beaming alabaster tiny insects

into the red-blooming
hippo mouth and one-eyed
crocodile yawn
of the butterfly politician,

who cuts corners
to blink sharp puncturing headlights
at a Committee Chairman
lifting the world like a floating balloon

left to wander with sea gulls
over a stormy sea
until a storm wave lights up
a mumbling candle

in the bowels of a volcano
with helices of sun.

(iv)

Until the rolling sun puts on
the dark coat of a blackout
to spin on the wheels
of a vehicle with packages of books.

Burning bleached stars
into a roaring lion-mouthed brain,
a valley-stretched light

from the bullying bawling shrimp
wriggling in the night
of a sea floor's wrecked ship

flashing out silver bubbles
and crystal sparkles
building glassy bulbs with spume
and cream flowers.

And the close-mouthed petals
of drooping tulips
burst open and shoot arrows
to spin on rivers of nerves

from flowered tree branches
in a king's hundred-eyed head:

(v)

Here stands a castle
built of stony anarchists
and sandy demagogues spraying
more sand on a beach

flattening out beyond shores
into a sun-hit desert
touching borders beyond its reach,

where hairs of air grow
on a blind arm holding out
a loud-mouthed torch to scream
across rays from Sirius

on a clerk's desk too blind
to read off sun squiggles
on a sunny computer screen.