Only Worms Croak Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

In the running forest
of wild trees
shedding torn collars
from branches,

as shirts of stitched leaves
split out
into tails of wind

trailing the heads
of heavy-handed punching
gusts and gales,

footfalls of animals
in heavy boots
tramp through, leaving splashes

of mud gripping
only taupe storm-flown
mountain flowers

that landed, seat belts
unfastened and flying
with threads
and button of debris.

(ii)

What flies hover
over a forest
of stunted trees,

jots and squiggles
quivering in branches.

Shivering over ice
slates of a page
floating into a rumbling river

with no words
from a crow

spinning its goggles
over a glittering
wedding ring

lost and buried
in deserts and forests
of cruising age
and creeping time.

(iii)

In the forest tossed
back to its rooted sphere,

a baobab tree
sinking ropes and spears
of roots

into fallow paper
shrugging itself
from a landslide with hooves

and claws and deep holes
dug out by the beak
of nib that plucked itself

off the drumming
and singing wings of a wild
flame-crowed bird,
a bearded hunter

dressed in night's gown
without stars
and not even a half-moon,

digs into the forest path
of chirping jumping
doodles carrying no spraying wings
of splashed ink.

(iv)

A heavy page thickens
into slabs of clay below trees
flipping out no umbrella

for the lurking mole,
no nook for the squirrel
scampering up

the floating tree of lost schemas
covering only a pool of worms
croaking in dim mud:

Beige and light pink marks
tow a one-ton poet
into bed with the roaring lions

and fluting birds
that refused to murmur

while the hunter was in a forest
slimmed down
to creeping octopus limbs.