Mighty Stone On Boyo Mountain Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The old rock sits on Boyo Mountain,
pipe in hand, the mist and fog
always puffed out by the demi-god he's been,
writhing out of a mint cream
and floral white gown floated lightly.

Smoking big daddy bearded
with split and spread tufts of grass hanging
from a bowing rock's chin and neck,

stretch out your arms to Muloin and Abuh,
where sun's hack saw cuts through
a chunk of muscles on your bumpy chest.
Widen your hilly stretchy limbs
to raise kikfuini's boots on your way
to fat-headed Baingo winds and cattle brush.

With your bowl and long-stemmed pipes,
tubes of rocks by your ribs
and eroded ridges of wrinkles and scars
only make you writhe out
of your elephant trunks in a storm.

(ii)

An elephant stands on the Boyo mighty stone,
but it only breaks into spades
and kneeling elbow-curved hoes

to plough clay with heavy gluey earthenware
for smoking pipes, those leopards
and lions sitting in a king's mouth,
puffing and wheezing out
anchor and pewter smoke
from crude tobacco harvested behind
lions of a roaring storm.

The pipe-smoking rock showered
by wind-spat fog and storm
stretches its back on a high rising stool
to roll with fog-clothed egrets
and oxpeckers dressed dust-colored tuxedos.

Bleating Boyo Mountain also bleats
with singing goats and hums
with drum-playing cows mooing off flying flakes
and rags of fog and steam,

when the smoke from a king's pipe
coughs out red eyes from a volcano's hearth,
and a scout from the king's palace
lifts a flamy finger

to plant a tall tree of fire, when storm
and rain blow bagpipes on roofs,
by the shore, a rain-drummed river
roaring through with a thousand lions burrowed
in underground tunnels.

(iii)

But when the mighty stone
breaks out of its nailed-in stool, rolling
down with barrels of fog
and feathers of mist

to brew a mountain of feathers
and cotton flakes,
and cream husks from chiffon
and silk from ivory corn fields,

the soft hand of smoke
from a king's pipe hanging down
mighty Boyo Mountain's chin

puffing out a beige haze from a hilly pipe
to weave a mighty flamingo
trotting by the blue sea of a sky fallen low:

The bird goes on its knees
and rises to stand on the Boyo stone,
as the stone quietly flies in the wind
sitting on its throne.