Threads Of Silver And Cream Butterflies Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

On a sun-swelled day, a philosopher
asked me in a squeaking voice
shooting the blue sky with a pointed finger:

"When does sky and sun meet
to walk and gallop on horseback,
frolicking on the same earth? "

"Everyday", I replied. "They gallop
not only on giraffe-rays
streaming down a needled trajectory
from the sun crater's mouth
squealing and shrilling all day".

They both fondle plasma-bodied
and wire stems and fiber
of light chaining them, each to each.

Weaving them into a tight nylon,
their threads floating down
and jumping up panels of air, breaking

into tunneled hollows
ridden by ice-struck folks full of fear
eating and regurgitating them
in rolling screeching barrels of life.

(ii)

Life between sky and earth
rolled to thin edges of cliffs
underneath a shark's basihyal swirling
in its mouth to toss off
the man in rags and ruffled feathers.

Wow, a phoenix spraying flames
and smoke to stitch
sky and earth with threads of dust
and showers of squeaks

when thousands of birds ride
on flocks of camels and hippos
sketched by their flight paths
weaving black wool warps unfolded
by macula throttling retina,

as a thin nylon-and-silk gown of day
drips in melting moths
from a candle-light's mouth burping
and drooling like a happy baby's mouth

spun by a teaspoon and the song
that sinks food
through the baby's flowery lips,
as she laughs out a fondle
pulling sky to earth's davenport.

(iii)

The sky has jumped down
to the baby's cot, Agnes' sheets swirling
with lime and harlequin stars
twinkling over the baby's mouth-chewed fingers,
as she rides bicycles in the air.

Giggle, giggle, the glue linking
sky and earth, as a baby laughs
with a trumpet's bell,
her mouth the size of an unbolted pink sky,

when balls and rods of sun
drop. They drop to play with my finger-chewing
baby pulling strings from my face,
suns evening out spiked ridges,

as rats and mice flee from burrows of melancholy
wearing a sky's hat and dusty taupe boots,
every stride of mine tapping the leather drum of earth
with rain drops.

Ah, philosopher wearing a sun's hat,
While your feet tapping earth
drain rivers of sorrows into a trench
at the end of a tunnel.

O shut the hooting train's door, bolt it.
O slam the tunnel's gate. Lock it
with a pound-heavy key carrying a king's head.

Pull down the metal body,
for it's raining butterflies and moths,
those splashed silvery wings
and beige lumps of water linking sky and earth.

When it rains, hold your breath
and drop with butterflies and moths stitching
social-distanced earth and sky.