Splaying Myself In A Couch Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Let me crawl
with a skipping day.
Let breezes
and puffs hop

and land
on me, as I stretch
out, wind
in my lap,
and as lay back

in my drifting
couch
flying with
a condor's
spinning wingspan.

I smell
and stroke
the tail
of an albatross

cutting through
countries
with sun
in their moon.

I flip through
pages of a well-
thumbed

feather-edged
encyclopedia from
my bookshelf.

(ii)

And lay open
myself
like a goldfinch
splayed

under sun's
flashlight,

a storm of sun
blowing into
starry flowers
of sun,

the deepest
valley
of my inner bowl.

I lay open
a jungle
slaying brittle
children
when the orange

gold ball
has broken its
crystal
crown of light

into shards
of wasps
stinging the eye,

as man loses
a dove's steam
to a leopard's
growl, time
roaring with
a breaking sky.

(iii)

Catch the sun
as it flees
down the horizon.

Grab it
by the neck.

In the storm
darkening
sky with onyx
and sable
clouds and soot,

slash off
a lurking typhon
spraying
a volcano's mouth

and dark powder
across
a one-angled peek,

a full round
gaze knocking hard
at a breaking
tilting panel,

when frame holds
ground tight.

(iv)

And I expand
myself
into sky's
breath, the day
hopping faster

than puffs
of desert wind
cutting through
sand dunes.

A buzzing, clicking
cicada jumps
onto my lap,
as I hold out
an allium to find

a cinquefoil
for my daughter
by this lotus
hatching life again
and again.