That Snake Poem by Felix Bongjoh

That Snake
(i)

The room turns birdy,
robins twittering,
as parrots chirp
around the kingly umpire

of a stone-faced vase
on the quivering center table,
as the tornado of a laugh
spills its dust into air.

A meeting grows flowers
buzzing with bees
amid tropes and light arrows
of teases and bite-and-blows.

A man's crawled cackle
plants a guffaw
in the meeting's crowd
beaming with stars

in a night of grumbles
turning into the rumbling rocket
of a drummed laugh
to lighten and bleach the heavy
dark cloud of the moment.

An over-bright sun
burns itself out
in the man's cloudy face.

(ii)

"It was just a joke
pulled out unfiltered
from a wild jungle
of chattering baboons

pouring out
their sunny laughing teeth
into a deep drum
of breaking glasses", says a veteran.

"Therefore the joke
carried an explosive that crushed
other crystals into dust", says another veteran.

As a rolling cackle jumps in,
brewing a rumbling
thunder of a laugh
with a lake-wide grin spinning
silky, gossamer ripples

and stretchy woolly threads
of wrinkles crawling
with another grin stretching
into a babbling stream.

(iii)

Handing over its baton
to the crooning river
of a another loud laugh with pops

emptying its waters
in cascades of bounced-on laughs
and a grin now crawling

on the man's face
carrying the head and tail
of a wriggling snake.