Bush Lamp Of Night Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

How many times
has hope lit me a new
candle, when wax
grumbles in the wind,

making my hanging
lantern swing to a burp
and the stammer
that slaps my eyes

with an exploded
cruising darkness of night
spun by a volcano.

I'm tossed high.
I'm shot above the clouds
of a firmament
by a tornado of light

rising in spirals
from the dark mouth
of a tilled oil lamp
floating in the smelling mass
of its own bubbling night.

(ii)

My bush lamp spins
a thick dark brown crown
crown of night
carrying no passenger,

but a yellow tongue
of light licking
high night, as thorny crowns
of night deliver

into the world
of a whimpering
baby in wings of a lighter
flame to light up a sky

over a shepherd
by a neon's cot
blanketed by the light
from a bush lamp
too heavy with oil,

O grease night
melting into midnight's
sniveling light
from a baby's whimper

across a string of asteroids
jumping out
of a lamp's comet tail
to light up

an ebony, onyx night
growing into rock
on Mount Calvary caught
in a bronze-gold flame

from a bush lamp
delivering the world
into a rainbow's arched light
over a simmering
volcano growing flowers
of an explosion.