A Knife Of Lightning Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The air was all graffiti.
Rainbows raised and lowered
their brows, brought
sky's ceiling to vow on the floor

amid cheers from hands that talked
too loudly to capture
a huge bag of night falling to engulf
stars from floating teeth.

Speakers tramped through
rock and mound
to get to a mountain's back,
clearing bushes and anthills of words

to nail the point
with a one-ton hammer
that fell so loudly and deep
that even those folks

grabbing the horns of poverty
were poked by punches
of burning hunger
since the winding session had begun.

The meeting had been steered
to a stormy jungle, too many apes
and lions gibbering and growling
on desks that had grown as tall as trees
in an eclipsing storm.

(ii)

A dancing lightning twisted a twinkling
knife in air's mist to slice off
the thick bar of poverty crawling in

like a crocodile to devour
buffalo-horned delegates, who butted
each other for the meeting
to come to an end, as a huge wave
broke off the shore of silent delegates

already rushing towards a buffet.
On an oval table extending to the wings
of a beach party, one man

tore a baked chicken's flesh with an axe
of a table knife that landed
like a cutting storm that didn't miss
a chocolate cake breaking into pieces

in a talking plate with a lynx's eyes:
"We want more knives like these
to slice out more dark chunks of poverty
in a future in nimbus clouds".

(iii)

But a volcano had already erupted,
spilling filling magma on plates clattering with
the speed of horse riders
racing for more blinking knives

to slice off poverty from a bullion of cake carrying
a sun bird on a red blob of blood,
a coloring that turned a knob in watering mouths
for rivers to flow above tongues

rolled up in sky-touching cascades splashing
crystals and stars diving out for more food.