Old Chongwain Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Behind tree and hill shadows
cutting you off into pieces
of a lost lizard,

a man still standing
on his tail with the tall
wandering neck of a mantis,

you chirped like a cricket
hooked in a snare in your pocket

that spat out only the fire
of red pennies
into your burning hands.

You crept and slithered
through tall barrels
of groaning dancing buildings

breathing heavily
with hairs and mustaches
of sooty smoke.

You choked my soft hi
with a flying bird-winged hello

from a deep haze
stuffing narrow pipes of your nostrils

in a world of lights too many
to grab the flowery rays and beams
of a single straight sun:
You had no eyes to see your toes.

But you rose above
quivers of elephant grass stalks
floating in gusts of winds

that ripped off your torn shirt
and flung it down
a valley, whose gales devoured it.

(ii)

Winds played with shadows
of the shirt creeping
in your hot flattened brain
mulching your desert loneliness

within memories overcrowded
with robins and sparrows,

little friends that trotted
with you like the old wise chatty
all day dragged out

like latex flowing along
a river stretch
of rustling flying leaves and winds.

Blown into far-flung flutes
with narrow lip plates
and termite blow holes,
sun alone left to play a note.

(iii)

Stars from these walls of mist
fell into your lonely path,

as you set sail for home
in a ship of grief with no deck

to toss your eyes
on missing and departed puttees,

your sons having marched
into a raised night

of rumbles and pops
breathing out

tall smokes to trudge
on streets sprayed with red roses.