Weeds of Jewelry

By Felix Bongjoh

The poems herein essentially deal with mans interaction with man, his immediate surroundings, and nature in general. They do not only reflect mans perception of his environment but also represent his attempt to communicate intimately with the objects and events of his experiences. The poems virtually share the same subtleties that tend to relegate the not-so-obvious to a peripheral statusotherwise metaphorically construed as weedswhich, in fact, underlies the very essence of their power and meaning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546293279

Felix Bongjoh

Felix Bongjoh, currently living in Boston, Massachusetts, is an International Human Capital Development Consultant, who previously worked for an international organization for some 30 years. In addition to the present twenty-fifth book, Saddle On Thunder, Bongjoh has previously published 24 books of poetry, as follows: (i) Chorus on a Bridge; (ii) Broken Gloss of Bliss; (iii) Nightfall at Dawn; (iv) When Dusk Hoots; (v) Weeds of Jewelry; (vi) Season of Flowers; (vii) The Ineluctable Spin; (viii) Gloom’s Sprout of Love; (ix) Spectrum of Zephyrs; (x) Whistles in the Wind; (xi) The Sun Still Glitters; (xii) Cliff of Sirens; (xiii) Quiet Shadows Scream; (xiv) Angle of Angels; (xv) Sculpted Out of Sky; (xvi) Feathers of Fur; (xvii) Through Sundry Waves; (xviii) Beyond Dying Ripples; (xix) Doors to Eris; (xx) Outskirts of Inner Bowl; (xxi) Ebbing Out, Bouncing Back; (xxii) Tailored To The Stars; (xxiii) A Storm Wave’s Reach; and (xxiv) Isles Of Light.

Book preview

The Beginning or The End

An egg drops, cracked,

And a chicken

Hatched is dead.

Thickens the bedrock

Of life past, draped in dust:

A cycle of life gone,

And death is sketched

In one short stroke,

A straight line

Sitting on a deep crust.

Beneath a regolith

Is the place

Where everybody ends;

Shines the stamp

Of artefact.

The noisy dust

Harboring crawling insects

Prickles the skin

Of eternity, all sinking

Beneath a single layer

Into the past.

A grave’s eyes focus

A lens on the past, birth’s cradle

A mere procrastination

Of when the future ends

In a coffin.

But who cares

About the beginning

Spinning the end? As whirlwinds

Cast us - every speck - in a spiral

Of color and sound:

The bird in its unique squeak,

The lion groaning

In a familiar thunder,

Nothing else but day and night

Shouting to each other in familiar tones,

Burning themselves out

Into fog and dew,

Into rain,

Into the rivers that end in silt

And drain themselves

Into a sea, its floor breeding

An end never ending

From which

A beginning sprouts

With fish hooked

In their own profligate nets -

The interwoven plot of gull,

Whale and shark -

Before the fisherman casts his net,

The trevally’s revenge stirring a gyre

Of the assailant assailed

To thicken silt and dust.

Even the lion and the crocodile

Are the hunter’s prey

And the regolith preys on us all:

Who sits on who,

The beginning or the end?

Seasons Change, Time Ages

Pitched melodies of pale green pyramids in leafy

Multi-sleeved gowns, hybrid willows in the breeze mumble

To take a low breath in their rustling ribbon-leaves.

Fanning the singing birds, their filial guests nestled within.

The birds’ lips are glued by sheer fright. Time tightens itself

In cogwheels of will grinding into dust hard nuts of burden

Which we, freezing hands, are unable to crack.

And gate-crashing shadows below the branches loiter and crack

Like old fissured rock of memory revealing long forgotten secrets.

Littering the mind with subconscious flecks. The sun falls asleep.

Silkworms now moths, sneaky guests, steal the sun’s warmth.

The guests stay, tottering - only to die in their slumber.

Induced by a weariness, the amorphous flake time incarnates,

Spreads its tentacles into ice-cold memories melting into a reality:

Fruits of the season ripen to a glow until, weather-bitten, they rot.

Time too rots like the cryptid creatures the trees have become.

The trees shrug off their flosses, leaves dropping like thick gobs

Of staggered tears. The humid winds across rivers swell our own

Tears which we blot with handkerchiefs stained with time.

To purify ourselves of our own crusts before we drop like dry leaves.

To die a bit and pray, sausages bundled up in crusts of chilly blankets,

Like fad hot dogs. No sooner has winter begun to bite our silk of sliced

Frailty than are we tossed into a slim space bearing tall greyish

Ghosts intimidating us - where trees once stood gaining height

Into the sky, cheered by orchestras of birds now in distant graves.

Before the funeral is complete, leaving only nude grey stalks, refusing

To jump further into the sky, the bright sun fondles us for a tight hug

As bright green leaves sing with a torque to propel us into another age.

Stitching Parts

My broken bones and chopped heart

Have pulled me down in a free fall

To feather-light depths of impotence.

Only ashes of mite web

Sail aimlessly in a narrow tube

Open at both ends - with only a vacuum

Screaming in a high pitch.

Gather my mangled remnants

And stitch back my worn-out cylinders

Into a needle head.

When all is embroidered,

Pistons in place,

The three-handed surgeon will

Ensure my spark plugs

Ignite my soul

On wheels of an inner-urge.

The surgeon’s third hand

In its simplest fluidity

Handles no delicate scalpel

To welder pieces of fortitude

Into strong eagle wings.

The hand only fluoresces

Into a stable