Ladder Of A Hat Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

When an inner bowl
grows into the hat
that covers you
in the heat of a storm,

flip out your ladder,
the parachute to lift you,
as other dudes sink
into a gulch beneath

their skidded landing,
life's runway
at its eroded end running
into bush
and jungle and swamps.

The priciest fish are caught
not in deep seas,

but on land to be dug
like an expanding piece of sky
here in the last class seat
of a flight to the clouds.

(ii)

The flashier life hangs above you
here - and only here
in the firmament
of a living room wallowing

with the ceiling
that rises above the sky,
every cloud a sheet
of street rolling on and on

for the curtain folded
to draw in
both sunlight and moonlight,

as moments sleep and die
in laky sleeping waters,

and life unfolds in the wind
extending its screen
beyond a shipwreck

when waves lose legs
and the ship's hands
can no longer stretch up

to catch fibers of air
and sisal strings of a rising sky.

(iii)

How many birds
have you counted
in their flag-flying coats

as moments fly
and sail with them
to land on a departing decks?

Only time sinks
its roots of stillness
into a pedestal of earth

O obelisk planting
me firm into mountains and blobs
in a mantle
rising up to my couch,

where tanagers and ibises
flow out of my chest,
as they wave chrome feathers
and windy wings,

but a sunbird is rooted
into a corner
deep down my living wallowing room
built by the ladder of my hat.