Clouds And Crowds Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Wasteland of a field from one
furniture piece to the door frame
clothed in an attire of stone.

In the room clouds of stains
and casebearers peek at me, grab
and shake the strings
of my inner bowl, the earthenware

peopling a desert of me with
stars drifting with twinkles and leaves
on sky's tree I climb with my eyes.

Like birds those eyes of stars fly
and peek at me for a chat.

For a congregation with clouds
on wall photos and pictures,
and an eclipse on the lawn of a hawk
seizing a chick in a lightening's flash,
ash still settling on a hen and me.

(ii)

The living room has been dead
like a quarry after a clock-out
that heaved the throat of clatter and jangle,
and gave silence thunder's blasting voice.

Where's Chongwain and Chah? Where's
Nsomyuin and Ndim and Nyeah? They're back
to school, where dormitories
thunder, leaving far-flung homes silent clouds
and smoke rising from cold hearths.

As I count shadows and silhouettes
of a cloudy wall hatching
bagworms and new umber bugs and stains,
a shower of birds storm into a tree
crowded with hue and glittering flowers,
as a crowded lawn bursts into clouds,

birds having fled the loud mewl of a wind
sailing through low linen chords.

(iii)

Above trees further down the playground,
clouds of birds dwindle into patches
of clouds fleeing tiptoeing crowds
of darker patches split from an elephant nimbus

wallowing over a deep knoll.
After a rattling meeting in the smaller
hall adjoining the porch,
clouds of rocky and gloomy faces

having exploded into a storm wave of "no",
I'm hurled back into the bloated cloud
of my bed room, a crowd of fruit flies
storming me, as I struggle to clear off clouds on my walls.