Song Of A Bumblebee Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

O arrow-necked pipe
O trumpeter,

indigo-collared
flower, I'll
sip and gulp
down your blast,

your rising hum
and cutting
piercing blare
from your sunny
trumpet's bell.

I'll sip it dry
spreading
my spinning
gold wings

into a flowery
star, a twinkling

ant flipping out
legs from
a fat stomach.

I'm a bumblebee
squeezing life
out of bright hue
from gaudy fire,

kissing petals
all day,
as the loud
trumpeter
of a hibiscus.

(ii)

Tell the armed
soldier, Mantis,
life is scooped
out by digging deep

into a pipe
from a drumming
deluge of comets

lighting up
a thousand caves
and a rainbow

burning with fire
only buzzing
mouths can grab
with fire's voice.

Not by swooping
off a neighbor
with storm
and flashy spirals
of a fist-

fighting tall man
taking short cuts
to strike you,
squashing with
a tennis player's bat.

My sting burns
like a volcano's
hot hearth

spinning red coals
and strawberry flames
to chew him off

into the tentacled ash
of a dead spider
in embers
sketching a reddish
gray bird's scratch.