Silver Flower Of Death Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Sprout. Bloom. Sprout
and bloom and bloom
with a dark flower of night.

Spread your wings
of dark blue petals to hover over
this dry lake of withered leaves.

I see a large blue petal,
a delphinium,
hands stretched out

into the moss and pine
of hue-fading leaves
thawing off

fern and olive shades
that flow into a night of daylight,
as an old man lies
frozen, a silver dusk

of greyish hairs growing
on his chin and down his cheeks.
defrosting slowly

into feathery orchid wings
flying down the face
of a dead man, the silver glow
of sun ricocheted at sun.

(ii)

O grandpa, dissolve
into wing-flapping life, robins
and sparrows diving out
of the beams on your face.

But grandpa sleeps deeply
on an island
hit by galloping, caterwauling
waves flying over

with an expanding mist
of drizzles and dropping spiders
of more drizzles

blanketing him with a blue
thickness of death,
an old man lying on his back

shrunk into his bloated
space, a cobalt shirt growing
in the admiral he's been
spinning on the battleground,

his machete the ray
swung all day to heave
and slash grass and stems

into the flying butterflies
of waste. On a paste
of shamrock and emerald wings
of grass hanging

on his cobalt jersey with which
he joined a team
of men pedaling life with machetes
to clear earth of hairs
and dig into clay.

(iv)

thrusting man into the world -
only to snatch man back

with a storm, the swollen wing
of a huge bird
flying over a far-flung ocean,

as the man lies quietly
on a green sheathe of grass

growing a blue-petaled flower
of a man bathing
in the flowery toothless rays
of a quiet machete
with only the steam of death.