Ode To An Old Lyrical Voice Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(Tribute to Kitts Mbeboh, a friend sorely missed)

(i)

I bawled out saying
stop with a pop,
but your hands
slipped off, as you dashed

to the other side
of a storm, a curtain
drifted
and pulled down
between us

under a dazzling
drifting sunlight swinging
a steady flash light

on a bridge, leaving only
a deluge to sweep over
my feet, as I waddle
through swamp and clay

to mold a firm statue
of you on your tree of verse
always swaying
in a breeze to let me pick

seeds and fruits to sow
on dawn-sprayed ridges
in an extending field.

We last met
in Harare,
you in your spinning crown
of a friend and teacher,

who wore the boots
of poetry, a poet
in the full gear of a soldier
in rolled-up puttees

to beat down every bush,
every thicket
for a canary's song.


(ii)

Poets never die,
but leave crystal flowers
to crown
silver dawns of stars
to flicker
with splashes of sun,

and twinkle over
their deep pots of paint
only Picasso's brush
can roll over

to spray and fill in dim
worlds of moonstone
with the rays of their quills
still flying

to shower the world
with suns shot back
from their skies growing
higher and higher

with the razor edge
of a rainbow
crawling out
with a scarlet macaw's hue

fromdeep volcano
harboring gems
of butterflies to flap wings

on the fresco of your
unmined inner voice
ringing with a loud bell
in a rolled-out
shaft of dawn's blaze.

Leaving hummingbirds
and weebills
to sing with me
on a bench on a beach front

unfolding sea waves
from far-flung shores
to spray sparkles and froth
of eternity

wheeled to us
in ships riding bumpy
waters to strop
the nibs of quills

for a skylark's voice
heard from a mountain top.