The Swoosh Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Who's blown a swooshing trumpet,
if not tight balloons flying over quiet
wind-drifted birds sleeping on pads of lawns,

low-growing small grasses whimpering
in a throttled breeze pushing forward?

Like air rushed out from their own balloons of fear,
the birds take off like little rockets
shot by a motor overheated with twitches and tics.

The sweeping dry wind ignites no fire,
but a flame of barbets takes off at one go
and leaves weaves of grass
in a smoke, fear the coals burning them.

No flames rise and no smoke is smelt,
but they are woven and interwoven in a smoke
of fear jumping down from burning heads.
Falling in deep ditches dug by brains in shatters.

(ii)

Nobody trudges. Silent rope chains in the swoosh
curve and bend grasses and broken stalks
with low crackles as fleeing girls and boys
creep through undergrowth tying a thousand knots.

The hopping hooking stems throw forth
iron chains to pull them back,
but they slither on like snakes under bowing
broken stems and grass with rake hands.

They stagger through stalks of elephant grass
crackling on their chests and shoulders,
as their legs burn through low shrubs and melt
under blabbering flamy winds.

And there is no fire in their narrow tracks.
Only ice blocks of fright from repeated twitches
tow them off through trees flipping out birdy
branches to sing or stay muted in dead nests.

(iii)

No bullet-lipped storm racing after them.
No clouds of smoke weaving gossamer nests
of fright, in which they take shelter.

No more filaments and threads in bushes to hook them,
where lurking vampire men wait dying of thirst
for low-bleating lambs, their shepherds
ashes in burnt-down houses still singing with cinders and embers.

The far-flung houses hoist flags carrying ribbons of orchids
and chains of red stars from flying hibiscus petals.
Fire was brewed and took root there. No fire here,
but ladder chains of fear, which the girls and boys must climb.