Down From A Fig Tree Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Kukwa has planted himself indoors
like a deep-rooted fig tree

not even the storm of a loud joke
can budge, when he hasn't
yet sipped the nectar of a fig

with a wisecrack that sends him
climbing through its branches to grab
its bulb, stroke its smoothness
and crack it open

into the flame and fire of a hue
to fill his mouth and nostrils,
as he sips the slippery seeds
with a twittering mouth,

all the birds of his mood having
found shelter in quiet nests.

When he pipes a buzzing honey
of a melting taste
down his stretched tube of a throat
pulling babbling streams,

as he swallows his fruit
with a deep loud drum.

(ii)

Time ties and untie knots
that pull and break,
an angler's loop running after
an axle hitch.

As he flips out a skidding smile
landing on the rock face

of a friend grown
into a trumpeting elephant
swinging his trunk
so high it hits him on breaking cheeks.

Leaving him too few teeth
to mold and carve out
a butterfly-winged grin expanding
into a wallowing lake's ripples.

(iii)

The afternoon rolls on
in galloping horses,
as he dives from a visitor,

who chews and bites
his pipe and whiffs his world off
in narrow tunnels of smoke

rising into clouds
that fall back on his powdered face

that only sees a sprite
spitting at rain
to ignite thunder from the red
eyes of an elder roaring
and barking at him.

Hitting drums and gongs
from a beast still gripping him
with crocodile claws

to drown the sprite in growling
rumbling waters
in an afternoon's stretchy river.