Mustached Old Man Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(inspired by a plant called old man's whiskers)


(i)

We trudged uphill
to an old man's home
in a prairie
clearing, my friend
following a warbler,

as it melted
out of sight, leaving us
in open country,

a wind our only
accompanying dude
galloping
on a whirring horse

that flew and slowed
down to a canter
and a stable trot,

only a breeze
blowing with the soft
wings of a butterfly,

as we followed
the zephyr slowly
over unclothed land
with no trees.

(ii)

Where's the old
man's cottage, Dave,
I can't see it
from here,

I shrieked out
with a sore-throated
chirping voice.

Over there beyond
the canopy
of tallish, or sort of
lanky dancing
blades of beaming grass,

some short,
growing on a wood
and cedar hue
of sprawling
gray-brown earth.

But I could see no roof,
not even a low-
lying aluminum sheet
on a bungalow,

but Dave patted me
on the back,
barking out the old man's
cottage was close.

The gasses evened out,
as our track
slithered and wound
back to its tail,

a bright low-creeping
lace cream
and pink-stemmed vine
spread out
in tentacled smoky,
curly hairs,

a flowering plant with curves
of an overgrown
moustache folded up
on a face of earth.

Here lay on an airy floor
of earth, the only
cottage harboring
an old man's whiskers,

the silhouette
of an old rippled face
flowing in its
dry swamp of a wild grin.