Sink, But Do Not Drown Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Sink, but do not
scoop out earth for a tunnel.
Drill yourself into
the wriggling crow cloud,

but plunge not
into the dark pool, where fog
rings a gong
and sounds the bong,

night bundling up
gladiators for a bout in a cloud
of thunder hugging each other.

Drown not
in shallow waters
flushed out by a cobra.

But scurry off
behind the cobra's tail, for its home
ignites a sun
like a candle's tongue of light
pulling you through
a shaft and chasm of night.

(ii)

Pulling you through
that maze of night unwound
into a ball of wool
to fasten a breaking scheme
without choking it.

Without pulling the tree
that pulls you back
to a chasm's edge in a sinking valley.

A track of thought
is the stream of light narrowing
into the spear of eye

peeping from cave,
the fat window of a pinhole,
a shot taken
of tree leaf crevices

sheltering a cloud's dark head
to roll into the night
that gave birth to the round world
of a square floor,

(iii)

every animal of furniture
fitting into an oval
a beaming opal coughing out fog
sinking you into a cliff of chimneys,

all light choking the piece
of paper spinning palisades to confine
the wings of a poet's

wavy thoughts
in a storm wave of night
falling with dark blankets

from a volcano's lips
muttering to the poet, as night shines
with muzzles of night,

an arrowed bow yet to flip up
heart to a tower-high star
spun by a wind in Neptune.