Snuff Sun Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Hammers
Of sun break tree
Branches
Into pieces
Of splashed light,

Broken leaves
And snuff-dust

Rising back
To the fog-coated sun,

A thickened
Air of pima cotton

Holding them
Together in shreds
Of themselves

In synchronized
Cough cackles:

(ii)

Breaking
Gourds
And calabashes
And dry
Bamboo stems,

As others
Sneeze
With the wind,

Fracturing
Themselves
Knocking
At each other's
Shoulders,

As a wild gale
Saws
Rocky tree backs

With rusty
And weak-toothed
Jack saws.

(iii)

The snuff box
Empty,
The sun broken

And ripped apart,
Forest eyes
Ripe
With a redness

That burns
With the flowers,
And withers
With brittle petals.

(iv)

When cheek
Rivers
Flowing from

Snuff's thunderous
Laughs
Moisten wrinkles

On dim
Darkening moon
Faces,

The people
Choking in deep
Pits of broken
Bottle crystals,

(v)

Dying for no
More flaming suns
Filling snuff
Boxes with more

Sun and dust
Sunk
Through dust-caked
Leaves

To make them sneeze
And cough out
Crystals
Of mangling pain,

A drone
Having sung
A storm's
Shrieking song.