Candle Flame's Sunlight Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The brightening
morning
tosses off
a wing-flapping
midget sun

onto a perch
above the thick
cream trunk

of daylight full of wax
melting down air
with lace-edged clouds.

Mid-morning's wax
grows fatter
and fatter, air's skin
hairier, deep
pores perforating air,

as the trunk of day
stretches out a translucence
and feathery screen,

sunlight thinned out
into a gold dragon fly
spinning over
a candle's burping mouth.

(ii)

Candle light,
you're too one-eyed
and shady
that early night
jumps down

with a black
quivering cloak
in flapped wings of wind,
mid-day sun
already burning
into ashes
on daylight's
sticky body of a melting

candle clothing air
with African wax print

blowing into flutes
and tapping drums

through swinging tree branches
slapping hollowed-out
barks of bloating trees.

(iii)

Breeze, blow softly
into a candles flame
in daylight's
swinging a rumbling
lantern hanging down

with cream
mildew leaves, the stuck
hardened flow
of melting wax ploughing
out ridges across air,

the thick trunk of daylight
standing between
furrows tunneling in light

through narrow hollow straights
of egg shell
and chiffon breezes.

Wick of a wind,
wind up
a sunlight's flame

to pierce a falling
nimbus hanging down
with tall heron legs,
a candle's trunk slimmed down.