Masons Of Night Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

After the storm,
masons of night
close in cracks

of a melting cornsilk
wall collapsing
through tussock holes
into a cream screen.

Light rumbles
with lightning cutting
air to leave

falling brittle pieces
of bricks, as the sky
barks and snarls.

But the bricklayer's
yelping dogs
flee to take refuge
below night's
smoldering fireside,

the hot moon
over a graphite
candle of night's
thickened trunk

shedding off its wax
on some of them,

who burst into
a thunderous throat-
tearing roar
and head-mangling
and hacking groan

until night bleeds
into a fire brick wall
collapsing into
flying graphite ashes.

(ii)

Hammers on night's
walls raise their
voices to the rattle
and croak
of stone-crushers,

but one of the tallest
walls collapses
with the stretched
boom of an earthquake

as sleeping beds
shake and tremble.

Hounds from grassy,
bushy corners
of drifting clouds,
whine and howl,

pulling the bricklayer's
eyes to maroon
and scarlet bonfires
fueled by redwood

and carmine logs
in swinging films of night
over the spot
of the thunderclap
that fell with another
fire chasing off

the noise-hammered
dogs escaping
through the gates
of rising tussock walls.

But the mason
barks at his bricklayer
to fill up more
cracks in the stormy
night, as a thunder's

jack hammer drills
the night to break
into pieces yelling out

for cement to plaster
another thick black
wall of a stormy night.