The Fleeing Truth Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

We ran after him,
a man dressed
in an oil suit with a touch
of midnight, a touch
of one of the dark stars of Pluto,

as he tramped down
the staircase
into a gorge in the building

only to jump out
onto a parapet and melt
on the second floor balcony,

swiftly flying up
a graphite staircase
onto the twentieth floor.

But he was seen at the emerald
sea stretch of a playground,

as we pulled out
a wide-mouth rake
to rake him out
on the twenty-fifth floor.

He was in a grocery store
filling a cart
with beer and mountains
of liquor for a sun-and-stars party
in a deep sinking night.

(ii)

Sun shone with one eye over
the midnight party. A bright
volcano's wings
waved its sprinting light too.

In a warbling shower
of fluorescent floating
beige light, the party swelled

into aluminum
and crystal clouds of night
beaming with night.

O daylight wallows in
through the windows of thoughts.
Through the yawning door
of rolled-out darted eyes.

A silver snake of light crawls
in, but falls on a pergola,
its archways only leading

to a tunnel of night
wearing the thick woolen jacket,
as we are lost
in a dungeon chaining us,

blindfolding us
in racing dark patches of clouds
flipping out thick blankets

over the thumping
hooting train driving us
into a station, every eye a policeman
with a smile growing a garden.