Missed Stroking Sun Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The sharp runner
of dusk's stiff
bisque
and burley wood
shaft rises
into a sepia canopy.

Night's umbrella
stretches into a dark roof
pressing us down
into life's sinking floor.

Falling jerkily on us,
until night turns
soot and sable,
nibbling off coal
and pebble patches.

Wrapping us up, choking
us with a thicker
denim sheet
doubled and lined
with an onyx tarpaulin.

We sit on a bench
across the belly of a sea
still bouncing
with the slow tide

of returning moonlit
emerald waves.
Spreading crystal sheets
over a running field,
sand rolling on and on.

On the horizon,
the sea drowns
into the feet of a mountain,

a tall night poking
sky's lightening powder
making way
for a flag of moony sky

hoisted by a breeze
into night's graphite hollow.

(ii)

No sleep now,
as the sky falls
on our beds
with torches' mouths
breathing out

a thousand fireflies
of stars landing
with shadows to settle
on our faces.

As we roll over
peeling off more dropping
tiffany stars.
Their shadows creeping
like bullet ants.

Stinging us with lost needles
of sun that dropped
with hundreds of rays
we failed to grab,

as we're now left
gripping only feathery quills
with slippery palms.

(iii)

Writing out the quivering
message of missed suns,
the sky grown
into dim squiggles of dead stars

building the leaking roof
of a sky sneezing out
drizzles through cracks
in the screaming

dancing window flapping
no widening wings
to fly us into deep sleep
but bouncing us
between ceiling and mattress.

A roar of thunder
runs through
our veins and nerves,

untightened knots on ropes
of neurons unfastening
into swinging bowlines
and half hitches.

Flinging us back
into no sheep shanks of folks
splayed to breathe in
strokes of breeze,

but taut-line hitches
tightening our eyes
into stones, failing to pull
back the day's sun

with its rubbing palms
that scrubbed us into naps.