Bouncing Ship Of Me Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Midshipman
of this narrow
street,
swing me
through a gate

into a blind
alley, but fling me
back to a quiet
muttering nest,

as I sit yawning
in the lower deck
of a cruise ship
drifting me.

As I trudge through
gravel
and cobblestones

and sun-marbled
spots
of a sidewalk.

Swing me with
storm and gale
pushing

my tottering steps
through
a widening gate

into a broken bridge
bouncing me
through
a widening door

into a flamy
bubbling garden.

(ii)

I tramp on
broken bricks
on this track
mauling
my shoes

and gulping
them down,

as I lean
on a wall sloped
on my seat,

a galloping pace
in the cruising
flying ship

steering my feet
along the claws
and paws

of a bumpy
pebbled road
riding
thrumming flagstones

drifting
from their cemented
glue and seal,

as I jump
over high mounds
and breaking crusts,

the hooting ship
taking off,
as the fire
of my breath

tosses me over
into the gate
of a garden flung off
my track

through another gate
of flaming rainbows,
flowers
pomaded with magma.

(iii)

I breathe in flowers
from haste's garden,
and smell
only the myrrh

of a sprawling garden
expanding
patience's wings
into bonfires

of red large-petaled
flowers
and a yawning man

leaning
on the feathers
of a reclining

chair
flying into deep sleep
with clipped wings.