The Sun Still Glitters

By Felix Bongjoh

With the exception of a few, the poems herein depict the agony of war and conflict and the plight suffered by people caught in the midst of their clouds. In spite of the gloom characterizing life in the context of stories conveyed by the poems, a resilient afflicted people still look forward to a bright future when the sun glitters again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Mar 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781490794259

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

Lacerated Morning

A heavily-lacerated, dewed

Morning slipping in,

With dim patches in the sky

Unfolding

Like the stained bandage

Of the wounded -

Young men unable to stand

On their feet, more

Garroted limbs come forward,

Improvised cloud-colored bandages

Stuck to their cakey wounds

As dark patches in the sky

Also bleed copiously

With the determined crimson

Of another busy bloody day,

Flies struggling to find safe filth.

When rivers turn bloody

From a drinking glass of water

Placed and served on wet urns

As cobweb-filled crucibles

Linger in dusty corners,

Where salamanders, lightning

In their tails, scampering off

To safety only suffer cuts

And bruises, coating them thickly

With crusts of their own clotted blood

And freeze on their paths,

Where lizards are unable to crawl

On red bellies, hungry customers

Cheerfully condoning a bloody disorder,

As they gobble down foul stakes

Rinsed in kitchen bowls

With turpentine-diluted water.

As they imbibe a chatty morning

Full of trigger-happy soldiers

Teaching a man how to walk about,

Ears shut, lips sealed, or else

He takes his next meal with a chopped,

Bleeding mouth unable

To masticate even his own breath.

And just as they step back

Into streets swelling with distant

Trekkers on a tedious

Unending trek still stretching out

Elastically, an ambulance

Shows up, soldiers sitting idly in them,

As wounded passers-by swim

In pools of their fresh blood

Streaming down the street like

Freshly arranged stalks of fire lilies.

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The Sun Still Glitters

(i)

Dark long tunnel

Of clouds

Unending through

A narrow strip.

Their own eyes light

The pitch-dark

Night of shadows

Of themselves

In growing

Cirrus clouds cheated

By a clumsy painter,

Embroidered

With ash-laden smoke.

Who told them

They could

Rip off eyes like flies

Darkening

The coal-sprayed air?

Sunlight has died

With skies

They’ve not filled

Their pockets with.

(ii)

Where are possums

And bats

To guide steadily

With faint candlelight

Lost groping hands

Feeling only low branches

As shrubs stick out

Thick unkempt hair?

Where are those frogmouths

And nightjars,

Whose cries light

Their stolen path turning myopic

With its own shadow?

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Unease in The Dark

(i)

Stifled chambers

In the dungeons

Of a sun-rayed day,

Eagle-lined wings

Flapping, tapping,

As silver rays

Turn soot

And boot to kick away

All straight light,

All showers of contaminated

Right-angled lumens.

The birds’ voices

Have become

Unscrewed guitar chords,

Dry banana leaves

Rattling between strings

Fleeting through

Sluggish winds,

And gong winds too

With battlefield bong,

Office workers drinking

Their own storms

From vapors of coffee

Not only intoxicating

Already agitated spirits,

But also sweeping away

Bright sunrays falling

On paths

Of rough cobblestones

Puncturing tired feet,

Leaving robins

Of the morning light.

(ii)

Owls and moths

Have stolen day light again

To catch some sleep

In tight-mouthed

Tents of darkness

Denying sparrow people

Any light in a tense black-out.

Let wren and warbler

Chase away

The bat hawk obsessed with

Dark corners

Trailing badgers, where night

Brightens the armadillo’s eyes

And curse them

With an eclipse, as sunlight

Still glitters in the unease.

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Wide-Eyed Sun Over Cornfields

(i)

Behind

A voracious hawk’s

Circular swoop,

A gust

Of arthritic wind

Jerkily lifts

Its hand, trailing

The weaverbird,

As it weaves daylight into

Its new nest,

From which showers

Of light carve out

The track of a blind man:

He too as a child

Once stole an egg from

The bird’s nest

And only remembers

It’ sky-blue color

That shines a path for him

Only with song,

Only with the deep dark

Angle of a cave,

A dream sunk

Into a stifling sarcophagus

In a generous shade,

A pitch-dark night

Its broad day wide-eyed light.

(ii)

In these cornfields,

Where they hide

Under bright skies

In deep holes

From which corn cranes

Have stolen

Away all light

And the hedgehog revels

In their plight.

But when

Idle soldiers storm them

Entangled

In clean-shaven shrubs,

They exhort

The sun gods for sun

Which glitters

Spreading

Sea-heading wings.

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Invasive Bats

On the other dark side of town,

Where all bulbs are blown out

Too many bats bump briskly

Into each other, across bruised

Shoulders shoving for space.

Too many summersaulting bats

To sustain faint daylight,

As tamed rhinos and hippos

Also walk across the zebra crossing,

Not quite zebras, as they’d be

Knocked down, pushed away

By party-goers returning only now,

Shepherds half-asleep, day-

Dreaming, their hangovers still

Possessing them, as dusk ripens

Into dusk, repeated twilights

Fading into screened shadowed lights.

The firefighters are here too

Trying to penetrate overcrowded streets

As fire rages on at a nearby store,

Thick dark clouds floating across,

Whirlpools of flares amid hastening

Pedestrians cursing themselves

And hangovers of a night hue, not

Yet ushered out by a distant sunrise.

Not yet ushered out by all these

Walking men, still sleeping,

As elephants suffering from a nervous

Breakdown, having had little sleep

Attempt to cross the street, lights still

Red, then