Song Of A Maverick Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I sit on a raised
plateau, not a fence.
Not a saddle
on a galloping horse,

but a quiet
rising podium
on rooted rock.

Let my voice for
those in the cold
of a rolling
flattened-out
desert, be heard
be heard and heeded.

O ringing
bell bird piercing
a boomed
falling storm of soot

to shoot up
to the stars clothed
in daylight's sunrays

a crushed man's
weak voice,
the whimper of the dying
deep down

a choked valley
stuck in the buzz
and hum
of interwoven foliage

overrun
by groaning beasts
devouring bleating
quivering fur,
O God's sheep
without a shepherd,

let me the captain
to steer them
out of the snares
of knotted grasses
and branches
of pinnate leaves
in dreadlocks,

when dusk and nightfall
tumble down
in broad daylight,

and there's no door
for the people
to dive out

in an airtight
drifting chamber
on gliding straying wheels,

a star too light-lipped
to twinkle and blink,
when red lights
flood life's street, as I walk
alone a sidewalk.

(ii)

But my sidewalk
erects
and cements no fence.

It tilts to all
camps of people
honking,
as they flow down
life's labyrinth
of intertwining streets,

as no traffic
policeman
listens to whispering
and screaming
birds beneath his brow,

as he seeks shelter
under a smirk's
blinding umbrella, straying
sheep left to the wolves.