Fire's Late Night Song Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(for victims of a conflagration)


(i)

Did a scarlet macaw fly off
a roof top amid black birds?
A red finch dives out too,

as a thousand bumblebee cardinals
flap wings. And sizzle
in the cutting scissors of red winds.

Crimson and ruby tornadoes
jump off a giant phoenix
swooshing out yellow blankets.

(ii)

Who claps and blows
whistles In the planted house
pulls down yellow curtains?

Who plucks banjo strings
in the soft tide of a windy song
slides red slats across sills

melting with wind-spilled
pinnate leaves of merlot flames
eating porpoise smoke?

(iii)

The snuff-colored and khaki men
still sow seeds of dancing russet
watching death from balloons of sadism.

Their boots and arms built
of crater rock
and iroko spine flip out

dandelion yarns to spill lightning
strings, as arrows jump
from their eyes pierce cinder of hacked life.

Mustard wind's hands
scrape and toss off
sighing mullions and sashes,

uproot rails as Tuscan sun
shines in a night of soot
and slate ashes lighting clouds.

(iv)

Stitched clouds of flames
and walls of smoke
building anchor and pebble hills,
let a coin wind climb you.

Interwoven lead leaves
from flying clouds,
flip out no more yellow flowers
for broken air's hands to pick.

Rolling butter yarns
across rolling floors of air,
let a daffodil wind
light up a doorway through

a tunnel of smoke,
a black corridor through night
in a deepening cave,
from which fog and flint dust fly:

Where are dust and dusk men
who churned flames tramp back
under the world's broken viaducts
on their brows?

Where are they?
Did they slip off
a zephyr's corridor, leaving flames
at their heels
to sing a swooshing song
to conscience in ashes?