Bloated Ship Of A Strayed Trip Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Dwarfs and imps,
skipping, crawling life
below swirling air
running into bowls

drinking strayed streams
and broken rivers
shredding fen and mire.

What croaks me out
of a tight bog
an expanding swamp

still swinging its arms
over deepening
muddy ditches
swallowing all boots?

What chirps me out
of grassy marsh,
whispering meadows
drifting off,

when sun has already
switched on my pupils
and I can't see
beyond my cloudy brows.

(ii)

Rising before me
with a range of mountains
ambling arm to arm,
elephants lying
on their broken knees,

as giraffes of storm
gallop and fly over
a hare tiptoeing

a breezy sheep
of a lion losing fur
and feathered mane
to a hopping pecking stork

in a gale that has lost
its teeth
to a strayed hurricane
and worms are crawling
on a dry path,

as a wet flat field
draws closer
to my dry soles.

(iii)

What babbles with
a narrow stream
slithering down
a half-mile deep valley,

the harbor
far-flung beyond mist
and fog,

hanging over a desert
cutting off ambling
animals of wind left behind,

left to dance around
a dying elephant.

Strayed and stranded,
the only animal left
floating and bouncing

on an emerald-blue field
stretches out sails
on a bloating ship,

perseverance no storm
can cut through
and no swamp can drown.