Ball Of Night Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Round black ball
of air breathing in
more sable, dark eons
with ions of a prodding
digging night.

O you scoop out only
tons of a heavier mass
of a night
in a dark sailing
ship's gown afloat its deck.

The onyx ball rolls on
with you, O paced night
marching onto
the banks of an abandoned
bed, as black birds
of night stitch themselves

into broken threads
of a latex ball of night.
I swing with you,
do a header with my
slipping pillow

to toss it back to sleep
with me in a deep night.
Ball of night, roll on
with me to a promontory
a window flipping open

to me a deep
tunnel of night, rolling
to dawn's garden
of lights rolled back quickly
to a thicker shaft of night.

(ii)

But with a wind flapping
albatross wings
across a dark desert
swelling into an onyx bag
of air, I steer
the ship of a poem,

swelling, swelling
behind a galloping giraffe
raising its neck
to hurl me over into
the swollen round ball of night

sinking, sinking
in a parachute that drops
with me in a bed
exploding into stars jumping
down from the sky,

O poem in a ball
of quivering night
bouncing on
along on a quill's tip

scribbling off the lightning
lines of a ball
of night dribbled past me
by a wind, as I lose
the crowing head of the poem
to the round ball of a thigh.