Rays From A Cot Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

By a shepherd
drinking the voice
of a bleating,
ringing sheep,

its golden crimson
and silver bells
from air's moonstones
hang down
from a sky in flashes.

How stars build
a rising tower
into a crystal fort
under a silvery night

tossing off rays
from piercing eyes:

O what dove
floats from the light
of a foot-flicking baby.

A breeze brushes
past with feathers
of a gluing touch,

a scream's rolling palm,
tightening fist
into a tumbling moth.

The warmth and coldness
of a stroke, eyes
that touch
without seeing,

when only a whimper
speaks and chokes
and doesn't hear
the lit bulbs of his eyes.

(ii)

It's his soft voice
lost to the wind
of the world's takeoff,

a past that once spun
in whisper's womb.

As sharp eyes
flash on and off
from a crib,

only the face
of a popping giggle
rises from a hearth,

swirls in a firmament
lost to its own
bright fire,
a hand in a sipping mouth.

(iii)

A squawking clock ticks
with the voice
of a clucking butterfly,

a breeze raising
a lantern's wick
by a crib on wheels
planted deep

into a ship's floor
drifting in wings
of an onyx-blue eagle

towards a horizon,
the splashed comet
of breaking daylight,

sun floating
in a swinging parachute,
the daisy gown
of a rolled-out morning.