Persistence Poem by Felix Bongjoh

Persistence



(i)

Streaking fingers of sun
spray a chocolate speck pecan,

floating helices
on fast-rolling wheels,

the glass hands of a fly
stuck out like arrows
hurled against
but glued on a window pane,

rubbing it, raking dry beige leaves
and silver grass
from a sealed-mouth screen,

dredging crawling sands
from a brown seashore
expanding wings,

storming a stained corner
of the window,
the only wall
the fly cannot break through.

(ii)

Climb, climb O fly.
But it slips
and glides off a target with no handle.

Slide up, slide up, fly.
Slither, slither
with the hands of a salamander.

Clip your hands
through like a gun stapler.

Somersault. Cartwheel
over a melting plasma,
a beige mountain

pushing a climber back
with storm hands -slapping him,
punching him back,

swinging hot jabs stinging
with a bee's buzz,
hurling hoeing uppercuts
with a wasp's hum.

(iii)

A window pane flipping out
a thousand fists

to fend off the hoverfly's
bow-flipped arrow
of a headlong dive,

a rocket landing
with hawk and eagle beaks,

drilling no dent
through a window pane's
landing strip
stretching out karate palms
to slap back the fly.

(iv)

But the fly fights
with hand-stretched wings,

while the pane
sprays its body across air's screen,
its hands

tucked into shallow pockets
gliding with scores
offlattened palms

waved against skies of screens
on a glass wall,

the transparent skin armed
with rocket and gunship
knocking down a fly,

as it chirps with a crickets jump,
only to slide back

down the flooded babbling river
of a window
stretching a thousand arms

across its glass screen
holding its pocketed hands firm,
as a fly bumps into,
scratches to pierce the rock slab

and flips out missiles
only to be struck back
by a window pane's stiff-standing air space.

Monday, April 20, 2020
Topic(s) of this poem: nature
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Felix Bongjoh

Felix Bongjoh

Shisong-Bui, Cameroon
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