Tail Or Head Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A gecko's stretchy
bumps,
buttocks shrunk
into ropy tail,

thin dwindling breeze
of a chameleon's tail
breathing out rainbows.

Shooting out
a winged comet
melted before it hardens

into a chameleon's
spectrum-changing

wind and storm
of guanine crystals
growing flowers
from a wardrobe of colors,

stringed drips
of sun rays
shrinking
into the silver tongue

of a sword closing
in with the sun's ray
of lightning

that strikes
a fleeing mouse.

(ii)

The mouse cruised in
with a king's crown
over a virgin kingdom -

only to be slapped
and slashed off
back to its hole deep
in old rags

and the kitchen's
deep-throated
trash can roaring
with slime and dust,

plantain peels thrown out
of its overstuffed bowels.

(iii)

How a tail in the house
melts and burns
out of sight, but a head
is yet to stick out

from another hole,
a spidery
crack breathing out

limbs and limbs
and limbs and a broomstick's
thin tail
in broken brown dots
dragged out slowly

into the thin feathers
and thick fur
of a roaring scorpion,

its reddish-brown mane
and whiskers dissolving

into sprayed blushes
of a man's heavily wrinkled face

bearded and overgrown
with a thick bush of fear

only hands gloved
with the fire of burnt fingers
can stroke and brush off,

the man's tail the only head
he spins and steers
into his hollowness.