Gate Into Late Night Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Lime and neon
rivers of light
too hard
to swim through
dissolve into floating

butterscotch
splashes and twinkles

from bowing
street lamps, the last
policemen in slim
silver tubes.

The last guards
of stitched lips

and muttering
gluing temples
etch out silhouettes
from night's
rising rocky stem.

Cream yellow air
flung by
the spread of taller
lamps from life,

sneaking sky rises
wallowing
and wavering
with shallow
and deep sleep.

(ii)

Streets spit
out gold bubbles
of cruising light

into the extinguished
life of half-eyed
apartment buildings.

A nightjar whistles
into a muttering tree.

A dragged whirr
under electric lights
stretches its hurl.

The world is crushed
by silence's teeth
and swallowed

by creeping, digging
sleep and sunk
snore and wheezes

(iii)

A hum, a buzz,
and the world
heaves a sigh
of staggered sleep.

Bees jump
down in the light
drizzles to bite

off the only glow
left to nibble off
sleeping skin.

Through a hole,
the gaping window
unbolted
by jabs of wind.

Through a tunnel
built by puffs
and sneezes of tree
leaves drilling in

new holes
in the window's orifice,
buzzing bees
of light rain drops
in the wind
nibble off my skin
and sting me awake.