Season of Flowers

By Felix Bongjoh

Season of Flowers is the sixth book of poetry by the author, Felix Bongjoh. His five previous poetry collections are: (i ) Chorus on A Bridge; (ii) Broken Gloss of Bliss; (iii) When Dusk Hoots; (iv) Weeds of Jewelry; and (v) Nightfall at Dawn. His seventh book of poetry, The Ineluctable Spin will soon be published.

In his sixth book, Season of Flowers, Bongjoh continues to focus on various aspects of the human experience across diverse circumstances, including from hypothetical reality. Interweaving art with style against a rich background of local color with flora and fauna often speaking for themselves, and through his own prism of human judgment and attitude, the poet makes ubiquitous use of flowers, especially in a metaphorical sense. His dramatic interplay of symbolism and wit enables him to invariably communicate gloomy and not-so-bright events and feelings in a positive, if not, optimistic light. His poems in this collection mirror life through a spectrum of social and psychological constructs, landmarks and ordinary incidents of a certain significance. In a lyricism reflective of the poets typical manner of expression, prototypical ideas are subtly but effectively communicated - quite often with a much needed sense of humor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546296256

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.

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© 2018 Felix BONGJOH. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/31/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9626-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9625-6 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This book is dedicated to my departed beloved daughter, Agnes Josiane Bongjoh

Contents

A Steel-coated Stone

A River’s Course

Love’s Trajectory

Flowers of Silence

Armed Tulip

Trees and Wild Flowers in the Forest

Bread and Trash at a Bar

Flowering Tears to Milk Posterity

Nature’s Amphitheater

Anonymous

Menang, The Blacksmith-sculptor

A Piece of Wood

Tail-less Mice

Love’s Colorless Hue

The Bonded Road

Two Horses Under the Sky

The Soul’s Gatekeeper

Survival

The Next Monarch

The Myth of Truth

Scribbles of Conscience

Deference

More Than Screws

The Rattle of Life

Lying on Her Heart

A Party of Gifts

Overburdened Soldier in Flight

Hibiscus

Tucked-in World

A Cynical Laugh

Prison of My Newfound Freedom

Love’s Clover

Cut From the Past

Amethyst on a Necklace

The Soul’s Cave

A Bundle of Flowers

Love’s Spindle

King Solomon on the Moon

A Steel-coated Stone

Fiddling with a stone coated

With the tough pericarp of gloom,

Which I can hurl at fate to disrupt

The falcon’s boosted speed,

A piece of glass without a shield,

But the skin of vulnerable silk,

I know even the toughest

Shell can be split open

With a blunt needle, when the heart

Is made of diamond pieces

Strung together with a crocheting pin

And ropes woven with a lion’s fur.

Then I feel like dropping the stone

Into a buffalo’s horn.

Blowing the horn with every nerve

Of the jaw gives me the buffalo’s voice.

How I create anything doing nothing!

But drinking life’s liquor

From the needle-strangled horn

Of naïve truth

Chokes the king with a message

Of love tugged into an unbroken egg.

Incubated, a fledgling

Simply flies through layers of mist

To find love without a cyst.

Trimming off the horn’s tip

With the knife of a sharp,

Shrill night of closed eyes,

Punching two holes near

The horn’s pointed end - both

Maneuvers give me

A bird thinner than the falcon

Perched on a moon’s arc.

Then I hate myself

For toying with a stone,

Which, with the catapult

Of caprice, may tear through

The world’s soul,

Leaving the falcon, the lion

And the buffalo

Homeless to dance

In the shredded anarchy

Of a bloody turbulence.

A blunt needle stuck

To the inner end of a buffalo horn;

The falcon isolated in the sky

To spare tree tops

Where crows pat each other;

And a shrill night of familiar sounds

Are the best players

To crotchet themselves

Into a mild stone, into a mild void,

A wild card to play

When the world flips over

And lands in Neptune.

A mild stone hurled at anything

Ignites sheer fright but harms nothing:

It guides the spirit

To the hidden diamond

Of love, the flowers that bloom

With messages diamonds cannot buy,

As the world rotates

On an axis of sheer routine

With a stone

In a catapult’s mouth.

The kiln of truth is a mild stone

That touches distance with love

Without hurting proximity.

The stone on a lover’s chest

Is the diamond that fondles the heart.

When it is pitch dark and love

Is the only flashlight to stave off the lion

And the buffalo to let love cruise

With a falcon’s speed into fate,

A rock with hippo bulk jumps down,

A slim fat head with a slit

On a long frame, its serrated mouth

The stiff petals of a malleable leaf:

This is love’s heavy-duty key to drill

Flowers into the keyhole of a stone

Without a mouth, flowers themselves

In sleeves of love’s silence stretching

Its hands into a screaming vacuum.

Rock arms and armless lake face

Hug each other, a steel-coated stone

In a compact universe condensed

Into the single tone of a nightingale.

A River’s Course

(I)

River

Of tear

Flowing down

A cheek’s grace, wrinkles.

A giant worm with rough bumps,

Brown lion’s back?

No roar.

Bubbles

Sinking deep

To alert the soul

Of life’s steady pace, rock rolled

Down a mild slope.

River,

Smooth slug

In slow strides,

Glides, a sun-cast glow

Of gold along silk-worm gloss -

Never dim.

Slow flow

Bowed low,

Moon arc’s bow:

A slow gesture gauged

Shoots a sharp arrow of love,

Unfading.

Night’s neon,

Love’s flare

Rising, bright:

Flame spat out by gloat,

The river’s muted dream-flow,

Love’s net cast.

Burbles

Throttled

Through branches,

To defy dark rocks

And sink deep into love’s ground,

A wink’s grip.

Ripples,

Arms stretch,

Hugs’ circles

Piercing a heart’s cyst.

Silicon crystal’s smooth flow

Through mind, bank to bank.

River’s skin,

Graphene,

Glance’s coat.

Eye’s brush through, no scoop.

The pickaxe digs deep into

Out-shun sun.

Babble’s

Dull tone,

A slow pace.

Reflects kiss on lead,

The innermost crust untouched,

Faint patter.

(II)

I bade

You so.

Winding stopped.

The river vanished

Behind the leafy bushes,

Turned shrunk beds.

Life too

Thinned out,

Drab stretches

Meandering, mute.

Creeks slashed through starved ailing banks,

Life’s source dead.

Soothed lakes

Tucked seas

Still far out,

Brooks, love’s heir slowed down,

Sneak in silvery zigzags

Into void.

Where’s the

Ship now?

Love starts here,

Our feet stuck in mud.

Our hearts, the ship to board,

At our feet.

(III)

River,

Flower

Of the eye

Wriggling with love

Through cormorant’s grunts,

Pigs’ bounty?

Pigs cry

Along

A river’s

Slim path clamping down

On slopes’ tug of war, as winds

Counterpunch.

We’re spread

In selves

With seams’ trims:

We dare not exceed borders

Of ourselves, thin selfless seas

With stark seams.

River

Swimming

On itself,

Streams subdued beneath;

It’s steep rise above a rock,

Sea’s deep mouth.

Torrent,

Void space,

Eagle wings,

The will of instinct

To surf infinite seas, trust,