Hat Of Muddy Reeds Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The man bounced out
into a drifting stretching world

spinning on an axis of sooty
coals and bright cotton
patches and glossy balls.

The sky had woven towers
of crowns made of stars

knitted and threaded into
each other in an overcrowded
silver space full of lime dots

and spike-edged scratches
drifting to a straight line
by a saw-edged wobbling cloud.

The man once wore a hat
spinning the golden sun
that molded and tossed him
out of the dark trench,

in which he was born
on cobblestones he broke
into gravel and granite
for a squeezed-out living.

(ii)

The man now lives his life,
wearing a hat of muddy reeds
pulled out from sludge

threshed with overgrown
cakey fingers carrying
a coat of the dump, to which
he'd dive back, as he bounced

into an unclothed earth
carrying piles of dust
and sprouting ridges that fed
man with dust, and laid
him to rest under layers of dust.

(iii)

This day, as he scurries off
and races and skips,
as he gallops and flies back home,

scampering in wide giraffe strides
from a fruitless hunting trip,
deep mulch, from which
he grows a mask of wrinkles

and deepening sunken jaws
digging into his teeth held firm
down his gums to seal
a smile or a wide-mouthed sob, as smoke

from his roof filling his dark path -
full of a starry night
of sparks and yellow flowers of flames -
swell into thick cyber saws,

which saw off all remaining
patches of his roof, as he watches
with eyes falling off into the fire.

(iv)

Cinders from the glowing rattle
drop back on the roof
like a bunch of locusts grinding off

crops from a roof that has
never fully harvested before
the drifting mighty dark-edged
yellow flower of a wild fire
swallows his reed-woven roof.

Under a sky of light drizzles
churning thick pastes of mud
and wind-drifted flying reeds,

he watches his house devoured
till the end, his face mask
of wrinkles and dents looking
like agitated files of crawling ants

fallen from a huge pyramid
of an anthill, as the village wears
a lighter hat of sprayed smoke.