Voices Of A Hollow Night Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

At a peaked pitch
night, a man barks
quietly at himself
to stir his mettle
into a steel shell,

as a gliding wind
whines back
at his hollow chest
freezing him

into a piece
of cracked icy
crust still splitting
apart into broken
crystals of glass,

as he's mangled
into pieces
and burnt into ash
still warm enough

to armor him
against other rattles
and croaks,

as crickets' chirps
cut and axe his
ears into a heavy
slab of numbness.

(ii)

Night in its peaked
horny dark blue attire
stirs the bowels
of a deep dark

volcano yet to erupt
with a sigh and a fizz,
a dark balloon
exploding into a deeper

jade and soot
rolling, thickening
wool and dyed
swinging denim,
obsidian wings flapped
in puffs and winds.

(ii)

How does he fire
back at those
gashing drilling
whistles

and punching,
riddling
flutes of insects
thickening voices

of grasshoppers
and stretchy reptiles?

How does
he break off
a far-flung thunder
roaring
into a nebula

coughing out dark
smoke
from a charcoal
dying air?

(iii)

Growl and groan
back at night
to pierce night's
dark brittle flesh

with the whizzing
spear of a puffy breeze,

but the beast
of night
with stone and bone
in its mettle

stays on to face
a strike or muzzle,
darkness smelling
a pressed trigger.

Howl and mewl
in the dark
and the beast hears
only a wind hushing
silence, as it whines

through leaves
and rustling dry stems.