Chartreuse Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Not the lime
green bottle
holding the world
in the nebula

of a far-flung islet,
stars upon stars

multiplying
a thousandfold,
as a sky drifts up

to another sky
on the second floor,
the third and fourth

floors drawing
down curtains
to their rising floors

rolled out and in
by another
honey-sweet shot,

bees buzzing,
as you gulp down
the juice
that spins you into

a pliers-opened
mouth widening
into a gaping cave

cackling with
I want another
one, another

shot fired into
a burning nerve
that spins you
upside down

and lifts you
to a firmament
in a dragged-out
black-out.

(ii)

But a lime-green
lawn carrying
a mat expanding

space with chats
pulling a sea shore
in to brush
and wrap up arms
with a breeze,

chubby cheeks
and chests stuck out
to drink more sun

and devour
with crane-lifted
eyes more

colorful lime-green
birds flipping over
into flowers of air,

and cartwheeling
into flames
of splashed stars
rolling over a warm
hearth of life.

(iii)

Chartreuse, the hue
of whispering

beams, lime leaves
crowning a tree
with green ribbons

to blow
filtered rubbing air
into a bird of you

flapping light wings,
as you roll over,
a lawn of carpeted
grass pulling down

a million stars
to stroke and pat you
with green feathers
of whispering grass,

growing grayer
into a cracked silver
day, its sky leaking
with green drizzles

pushing the world
to a myrrh-sneezing
bed sheets

drifting in necklaces
and stringed beads
into a chat

tying up
clasped palms into
a midnight sun
under crystals
of spun fanning light.