Storm's Tent For A Tramp Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The dimming skies peak
with a bulk of nimbus raising flaps

for landings with bustard
and albatross wings,
as halberds and lancets of rain

strike rattling banana leaves
and wavy green palm lances howling
and grumbling loudly
in gusts of twisted and twisting swings.

When gales howl and growl,
dogs and leopards
trailing them with high jumps
as they drum tree trunk holes,

and play bassoons for moles
to dive into ferreted-out
reed-cushioned homes inside
stitched and woven rocks,

a storm bounces in
with bulldozers and architects
ripping off tree branches

and tall grasses dancing on one leg,
the other sprained
by kicks from a tall stems.

Building pyramids, as they break
and fly over to grip
sturdy trees stamping in their feet
with hooking and stapling roots.

Flowering plants lean
on tall stems and old stumps of tree trunks
grow fingers and arms of leaves
to poke edges of air.

(ii)

Old and thunder-broken folks
sit in to peek out at a sky
in cream and beige fibers of a downpour

weaving screens and mists of rain,
a slate of streaks building up.

They weave battering gifts of silver
fibers into nests behind a fireplace
dressed in waves of a furnace,
as they close in to tents of smoke

built and spread out
in their thin-skinned walls creating
foggy umbrellas for the homeless.

For the first time I see a tramp -
behind the house down the valley
a few yards off -

smile, bulldozing off hills of a frown
he's been wearing since the season
of spears and weaves began.