Strings Of Harmony Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

If the world chimes in a clock
and rhymes in a poem with birds,
why not with men in a volcano
to eruptwith other folks;
why not in a stanza of wasps

steering lions to their den,
when bees still sing and cling
to each other andto hives
beyond their periphery
of hummedand buzzed song,

other flowing flocks bleating
in blizzards, but nestling into each
other's fur and feathers;
other galloping and crawling beasts
finding a tunnel to stream through.

If the world ticks with the click
of a furry mouse, why not
ring with the bells of a call for
fields and seeds far beyond
peripheries of hives andflowers.

If the world peals with thunder
trumpeted and fluted through
thrusts of breath, and sung storms
stroking thorny bushes of a smirk,

why not smile with other men,
so beasts can flow in their groan
with whispered rhythms,
as doves swirl in their gonged coo
and quake-torn faces giggle.

(ii)

By the cliff, men and beasts
sticking to the same cabins in ships,
soften the galloping storm wave.

By the harbor creeping teeth
maul no prattle and no song,
when a storm-laden verse flows
from a pigeon's caw and peep
for a reunion in the breezy castle

of a tempest filtered and funneled
through a short, steel-lined
poem twittered by a lace sky
of flying, summersaulting birds
of different-layered feathers.

In the hurricane, flip over
your jacket with the roaring lion
to strike down a groan
for a smooth flow of your passage,

a verse hummed for you
to disembark a ship of stormy faces
crawling through your soft smile.