In Feats And Starts Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Fat like an elephant,
as I face a hurricane
and a flame
burning me out into
the ashes of a quivering mouse,

I bolt out of me,
holding out
a sore-tongued axe,
its blade
the sharp kiss of wind,

as a breeze strokes me
into a flower's
spiraling petals drilling
beaming dents
on my cheeks into ripples

on a lake O smirk,
the only door
to sun-lit faces outside

my standing prison cell
of silence
growing into a flower
with feathers and wings

of a scarlet macaw
burning down a dark path
of night it pierces
with the straight flight
of a dashed gaudy fire.

(ii)

I flap my wings
through space and pace
floating my world

on the swirling axis
of a jet's flight,
a rocket the growling
panther pulling the world

into quivers and wiggles
on the door steps
to a jeweled chamber

adorned with the stars
of a night in a tall bottle

breaking into sparks
of shards rolling down
the back of an ambling elephant

pulling a day in clouds
blowing a volcano's trumpet
blasting a mid-day's sun

landing in shards,
a departing train still
hooting behind the hills,
a slug steering

the day into a deep hole
sinking into a flowerier
volcano's crater
bleeding out a lava's old wounds.