Excavating The Scripts Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Grunting, bellowing
and snorting
antelopes
in bleating air,

growling with leopards
and trilling,
whining civets
in a widening jungle

of stretchy-armed
trees
and creeping,
jumping grasses

and undergrowth
on his desk
seating rooted scripts,
notebooks
and stationary.

Let a brighter
wide-armed sun
crawl and creep
with whistles

on the brown surface
of a sprawling
racing pitch,

as he churns out
bird-tailed
and dog-eared old files.

Extending space
on a piece of wooden
furniture
holding its ground.

(ii)

There're only
varied-pitched men
cutting out
their spaces

in the documents
with many clouds
hovering
over photos

in a nebula
of hanging hollows
spanning
the sky
of their prodded
filtered search.

Weed out
the piccolo
of whining breezes.

Let the heavy
bass of trombones
blowing
from the meaty flesh
of mementos

and squiggles
of hand-written scripts
raise their voices
to score their points.

Root out
those storms
from
skeletons

and broken bones
of documents
with little flesh
and fur to roar out
a cutting point,

as rolling lips
and gnashed teeth
running
through scripts
only blur

sunlight
to make room
for the dark
marsh
and wavy waters
to drown us.

(iii)

For the plaintiff
taps and lights up
fuel-packed
grass with no patches
of clouds,

but beams
of yelling flowers
to blow out
our point and make
the gavel
sound a gong

on the judge's desk
to burn
and leave our
case in cold coals.

We're running
out of red glow
in the hearth
of our case pulling
no more tinder,

every piece
of cinder ground
into
wind-blown soot.