Perched Poem by Felix Bongjoh

Perched on three
muscled legs,

a winged flip chart
and buzzing stickers
speak to him,

as he steers
and wheels
an audience slithering
through stars
to the beaming moon.

Shifting with light
perched on pillars.

Flipping out one by one
thin pocket knives
to etch out

birds and flowers
on a rocky memory

to melt into rivers
ambling and racing

into watersheds
foaming and frothing
with sparkle-eyed
flowery swells of prompts.

(ii)

Perched high on a seat
behind a podium
rising with the tree

of a creeping schema
raised to swing
in the whining wind
of a stormy audience

spread out
with bipinnate and tripinnate
wings of stars,

flipped-out flickering
fingers raised
by gale-driven participants

pinched and scratched
by arrow-lipped birds

in a multi-layered sky
of the town hall,
each bird rocketing

through clouds
to sail and crash-land

on shaved feathers
of melting sun flipping out
a more starry schema.

(iii)

The furthest tree
carries branches
with leaves of stars

to flower space
with buds and sprouts
tickling memory.

Perched on himself,
the eagle man
with broken teeth
whets his beak to dive

on a sleeping prey
eye-scanning
his computer screen
in a room of leafy listeners.

(iv)

The town hall meeting
hawk of a man
rises up
from a nest of sparks,

the fireworks
of his volcanic explosion
of mood,
as heat roasts him

to land with hot coals
and flames
on a rival flying helices
of a schema
faster than him.

Perched on a tall tree
of himself,
he speaks to a birdy,

whispering audience
that picks up no schema
to glue to a slippery memory.