Rope Of A Moon-Lit Beach Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The moon is tugging
bouquets of beige
and silver flowers into tree-sifted
beams and wobbling rays.

Over silver trays
carrying taupe and blue bays
on walls gazing at trays

of coffee and tea,
night life continuing to sip
from demitasse cups
and deep bucket mugs,

as a zephyr also sips
ropy arms and gripping crab
hands, fingers stretched out
and clicked in ropy waves
of strokes and fondles,

when no star drops
between baked and brittle chests,

and no parrot flies from lips
and muttering finches
tightening mouths dug in to ears.

(ii)

On night's beach sand
life is more stretchy than landing
wriggling waves
sketching slim-tailed snakes
on a dancing shoreline.

Our arms a reef knot
of ropes scraping
each other's back in a breeze
lifting our soles
into our mouths frozen by silence.

Our arms loose limbs
folded into each other to brush
and hush wiggles

creeping out of the deep ditches
and waves of a day
of storms still trotting into the shores
of a quiet evening,

a moon-lit rope of couples
loitering on a beach,
its slithering shoreline breaking

into our chests
hot as the hands of a hearth
tying us in soft loops
with ropy coals down a snaky shoreline.

(iii)

O Nayah, when tons of files
float like swans above
our drowned heads still sinking

us into deep-throated rumbling gorges
of hands drumming keyboards
behind swallowing computer screens

opening hippo mouths
to devour our burnt-out heads,
let us stroll down
the snake's tail of a shore line,

but let its venom
not spill into our reef knot

growing into a ship shank,
when I look into your eyes
and see a deep tunnel of a booing breeze.