Castle In An Orifice Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

On the fell and satin gown
of a brown mountain,
squiggles of a fleeing bug melt

a desert silence singing
the song of a far-flung

cactus wren tunneled
into another guarded silence,

as it rolls eyes at bouncing
moments, a tumbling,
cartwheeling sun spraying

cotton feathers and wings
of crawling light.

No chirping dent to grab
a spot in strings of dust.

Only a silicon flashes
bright silver eyes
without a blink, but cannot wink.

(ii)

No umbrella hole
for a brooding nook,
chicks hatched by
the dragged tick-tock

of a worm-driven
snake shooting
a sunny eye
at comet-eyed chicks.

Earth, wear your mammal's
leathered back O give me
a clinging gecko's coat
hung on plucked wires of wind.

Only brown air
points claws of dust
at a face without flesh,

as I crawl through
collapsing dunes
breaking into tentacles.

And brawl and cowl
with dusty grains of sand
on severed ridges.

(iii)

O path of a one-legged
cataglyphis trailing - trailing

the waiting roadrunner
hooked by a schema's goo.

Rush into the crevice,
a mound of sand
widening mouth for your passage

into a deep nest
perched on the elbow of old rock.

Loiter not a speck
of a second
sewn by a pedaled thought.

(iv)

Creep not O loiter not
by a dark arc of feathers
sawing off air growing
weaves of fur and manes.

Cling to the roaring gale
with a warbler's parroted tongue,
a herringbone basket

building a home
for a landing sun.

Let a sun's silver castle
build a deep home
for the one-legged cataglyphis

tossed off a storm
brewed by the flapped wings
of an axe-lipped hawk.

O fly off with your hollow jaws.
Let the little guys nestle
in a sun-filled castle,
sun the hammered-in roof.