Mauled Dark Screen Poem by Felix Bongjoh

Mauled Dark Screen
(i)

Mauled night, slashed
angles of wind
straying into leather backs
of a brown burning night.

The winds have strayed
like lined-up lemurs
pacing to the tune of a dance
in a forest clearing
showered by sun after a petrichor

has placed its hands
on the nostrils of shifting
pieces of breeze and wind
lifting flames into
jumping yellow spears.

Houses mulch gardens
of fires, their red and yellow
flags and ribbons
trimmed petals of flames,

wrinkled leaves the only tinder
rolling their cheeks
in scrolls of flying flames
stretching hands to the sun.

Mauled night, as roaring
lions breathe out fire
through whiskers and canines
of a close-woven night,
a mauled screen of fire
swallowing swelling night.

Night bleeds night.
And a dim moon bounces
out from ash
flushed through a tall tree
of night, when a balcony

drifts off and loses sight
of its garden's sprawl
into hedges, an expanding nook
sheltering shadows,

bodies having fled
into flowered cloaks of death,
an owl blowing
a hooting trumpet
slamming down a dark door of night.

(ii)

Screen off a door frame
allowing light to bounce through
with a kite's wings,
as a wounded eagle waits.

Seal off tall barricades
of night collapsing
into a tottering storm wave
by a wobbling sinking ship

with no deck for the last piece
of sun still wandering
into a raised armpit of night.

Night bleeds night.
Engulfs cherry and garnet
Spurts and streams
flowing from a wounded night,

toddlers and children
trapped in the narrow gate
through flamed saw-edged cliffs
closing in with bloated

sulfur and monarch butterflies
clothing night,
as a night of cold colds

is unclothed, wailing
and screaming women
swallowing a trailed slow pace of life.





(i)

Mauled night, slashed
angles of wind
straying into leather backs
of a brown burning night.

Houses mulch gardens
of fires, their red and yellow
flags and ribbons
trimmed petals of flames,

wrinkled leaves the only tinder
rolling their cheeks
in scrolls of flying flames
stretching hands to the sun.

Mauled night, as roaring
lions breathe out fire
through whiskers and canines
of a close-woven night,
a mauled screen of fire
swallowing swelling night.

Night bleeds night.
And a dim moon bounces
out from ash
flushed through a tall tree
of night, when a balcony

drifts off and loses sight
of its garden's sprawl
into hedges, an expanding nook
sheltering shadows,

bodies having fled
into flowered cloaks of death,
an owl blowing
a hooting trumpet
slamming down a dark door of night.

(ii)

Screen off a door frame
allowing light to bounce through
with a kite's wings,
as a wounded eagle waits.

Seal off tall barricades
of night collapsing
into a tottering storm wave
by a wobbling sinking ship

with no deck
for the last piece
of sun still wandering
into a raised
armpit of night.

Night bleeds night.
Engulfs cherry and garnet
Spurts and streams
flowing from a wounded night,

toddlers and children
trapped in the narrow gate
through flamed saw-edged cliffs
closing in with bloated
sulfur and monarch butterflies
clothing night,
as a night of cold colds

is unclothed, wailing
and screaming women
swallowing a trailed
slow pace of life.