Landslide Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Who's in the moon molding
bulbs catapulted to land
on the corner of every house?

Moon balls bounce on and off
a drifting sheet. Flying
crystals spray gray scribbles
running to the edge
of a slate to stumble and fall

on a page's shore, quill
and nib gliding firmly with gripping birds
on electric pole cables,

as notes from Mozart and Bach
spin and stand with a lone
canary piercing the gossamer skin
of night's silence.

The moon's hands are stretched
through the window
to the kitchen, where its fingers
scratch out an old steak
wearing a tailed shirt of mold

How many leaves shall I pick
from trees in a nebula
of squiggles, as doodles
capture a dragged-out yawn?

Grab my hand to sketch the face
of night's numen
breathing out fire to erase
the tiniest speck of night's soot.

(ii)

By a moon's river of blood
flowing through a cut on night sky's skin,
a raggy phoenix flies out
of an inkpot on my desk swirling

with red-winged splashes
fighting with a gazing hawk over
dark-gray ashes spilled

on space for burnt swords, the winner
of a gladiatorial night
also burning in a smoldering fire.

The moon shoots balls again
to roll down a desert sheet,
slithering writing crawling
on the boundless ground of a cataglyphis.

But the stropped edge of a moon's saw
breaks the moon. A crash
of rays on night's wall splits

into a landslide of light that rolls
down the hillside of a cone
bleaching out the doodled flute
that would have played out
an epic song for a moon's cotton and snow light.