Leftovers In Flame Flowers Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Mother, crawl your eyes over
flames of specks left after a fire.
Creep your nostrils over
tentacled limbs of peeled-off earth
and dearth in a bush of debris.

Walk your stringed gazes at
the wild grass of leftovers,
after flames have gulped down
a meal of old jewelry ground

to cold embers. To pulverized dew
and mist and fog, every fly
hard dust. Hard crystals of pebbles,
spraying mulch for dark flowers.

(ii)

Mothers, your pales fetch waters
of debris hardened into
crocodile-coated lakes and ponds.

Seas of old shoes and toys,
pots overcooked with dusk dust.
With dawn smoke and jacketed night,

showers of light jumping
down on crawling furniture wearing
crows' feathers and roaring manes.

Knitted leaves of space growing
bleeding branches of dry leaves,
and twigs blown into birds
in the wind swinging lances, as times dim

with midnight fog woven
into a blanket of fumes losing
breath. Tossing off
showers of bouncing patting breezes

Let your hands be the rakes
to scoop out a million stars buried
under a carpeted night
of dark powder and crow mist.

And flowers of dust spat out
by the igniting hands of a khaki man,

a walking man flipping out
fingers of bullets. The night-clothed
man, fingers grown triggers.

Eagle-beaked, vulture-mouthed leaves
of smoke from a gold tree,
love-laden flames flowering into fruits:

Eat them, sip them peeking at
Adam and Eve in a star-lit garden
of roses flipping over
in red and white butterfly wings.

(iii)

Child, hurl your eyes at coals
and cinder. At the gray
and taupe bodies of ash, splashed
arms and old jewelry of trash.

Jump your eyes to sneeze out
the smell of an old smile.

To mimic and breathe in
old wrinkles' brush in a lap as deep
as the couch of an eroded pit.

An alabaster of grandma's frown
burning you with flames of love
on tulip and hibiscus heads,
goateed debris carrying sideburns.

And wigs of coal-munched blouses
crawling, bruised worms,
from simmering embers brewing
mulch for roots sinking into a shaft,

a silver sky hanging down
with hollows and skinless floating
plastic wings of daylight

flowing into a storm of butterfly
tuxedos floating in misty hands,
and air-colored gloves,

guests flying out gazes of white roses
and swallowtails rolling
on sleeves and shoulders,
as hawks beam grins at laughing chicks.