Folded-Up Dog At Noon Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Folded up into itself
in the verandah,
ridding it through the desert
of its stillness,

it's loaded head
curved up between
its running
forelegs lying
beneath its brows,

this dog swallows
the world with its gaze
and spits out
a dim moon through

its hazelnut eyes
digging into
its clawed world
with a wink,

weighing its broken globe
with its peek's
shifting lantern burning
off night's sooty

candle still spitting out
the wax of a metal
hue that ground
out it's ears last night

with the stuttering
voice of a stone-crusher
breaking up
the animal's path of silence.

(ii)

It sits on its burnt-out
pupils that scooped
out every moment
of the past ground into dust,

when it stared out
its eyeballs into the mist
and fished out

a scavenger bird
by a trash can
that almost turned
the dog into trash,

as the bird sized up
the animals on its
four clawy wheels,

and gobbled down
the groaning animal
with a cutting peep,

and pounced
forward at canine
in one leap

to leave the growling
beast with bleeding
eyes. The bird ate up
everything meaty
and beefy in the fat
trough, leaving only

the beef of the moon
above
unchewed, as it

tottered back home
yelping like a piece
of metal pressed
on a smooth slab for
stuttering undulating hours.