When I was small
I needed nightlights
in the farmhouse by the swamp.

Shadows gathered in corners
like animals without names.

Before the move
I stood in the field at night,
no outline of trees,

the sky clouded,
air held still by heat,
depthless black before me.

Later, streetlamps
cut alleys into squares,
windows spilling yellow

from kitchens and bedrooms,
a neon sign dripping red
onto wet asphalt,

engines keeping the day alive.
Not dark.
Thin. Unfinished.

What I knew as a boy-
dark was company.
It held me,

steady as the breath
in my ribs.
Older now,

I long for that silence.
I have grown
so unafraid
of the dark.

Middle age is a drawer of bottles,
labels rubbed blank,
small tablets stamped
with numbers I can’t read,
others chalk-white,
anonymous as bones.

That August night I woke,
a moth in the moonlight,
wings two halves of a Viking ship.
They say if it maps all four corners
you’re finished.
My head bricked with mucus,
her throat raw-
our marriage a duet
two instruments coughing through the score.

I whispered- moth,
as her eyes opened, glowing like sunken lanterns.
It weighed two thousand pounds,
wings lifting her hair
like a bride of the dead.

Two optimism pills
waited on my table.
I chewed them dry,
chalk cementing my tongue,
the insect’s brain ticking in my skull
like a clock in a gothic castle.

Then water rose inside us-
first a seep, then a tide,
spilling warm rivers across the floorboards.
The dark room brightened green,
cypress arms cracked plaster,
reeds whispered spells older than fever.

Fireflies stitched lanterns along the walls,
crocodiles slid through like priests of the river.
We held hands as the bed turned pirogue,
drifting through brackwater green.

Above us the moth circled-
no longer omen but guide,
its wings stirring moonlight into spell.
Papa Legba opened the crossing,
Maman Brigitte lit the reeds with flame.
We: two elders slipping from sickness into swamp,
breath turned to whirlpools,
our oaths ferried
on the moth’s traité tide.

My mind is a swamp.
Sometimes there is daylight. The Sun illuminates the murky green water. The color glows like a neon ember. An almost steam lifts off the bog, as if the water is ablaze. You may see all of nature then and admire each blade of sawgrass.
And then there are nights. Moonlight bathing insects who scream far in the distance but seemingly all around you. Some tiny being you can’t see plunges into the water with a plop.
The eyes of a crocodile peaks above the waterline. Is it looking at you? Fear, you can’t tell. The pungent smells are animalistic. You don’t belong here.
Or do you? Only another native of the swampland could stay here.
You wade into the dark waters. Unsure how deep it goes. What creatures slither beneath.
To see if you’ll float among the cattails. Lily pads cover your face and moss decorates your body. You’ll float here forever.
Or sink, to lie at the bottom in permanence. A mummified vessel where algae and minnows call home.

What is love,
if not told to the heavens?
What I feel for you,
is locked deep in the ocean.
The more I know you,
the Deeper I go into your forest.
What I want is not empty,
like weathered plains.
It’s not murky nor dead,
as I step through your swampy past.
It’s whole and true,
as the smell of rain in April.
Its beauty is among the sun,
in spring.
All I want for you,
for us.
Is an adventure,
of love everlasting.

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The mire, borne
from past reflections,
that snap from my memory
like broken ribbons.
Pastures of azure
amidst agony, frozen
within a monster’s jaws.
Its frostbite fades into my
veins.
Again, within these beryl
everglades cannot move.
I cannot see you.
Where have you gone?
This air, it blisters
Into my lungs and
benumbs me.
And still, I run.
Accept my feelings,
here and now.
And in parting, let me vow
that in a night
or in a day
if you vanish
or if you stay
in my death
when my flesh is gray
you will see me in your everglades.
I run
in search of you.
within the moor
and its creek of dreams.
lucent crystal cannot hold
my shivering bodies
it breaks beneath me.
bubbles. . . water. . .
flooding
flooding
flooding
into my body.
again?

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The mire, borne
from past reflections,
that snap from my memory
like broken ribbons.
Pastures of azure
amidst agony, frozen
within a monster’s jaws.
Its frostbite fades into my
veins.
Again, within these beryl
everglades?I can never move.
not truly.
I can never see you.
You are always gone.
This air, it blisters
Into my lungs and
benumbs me.
colder… colder
growing colder.
And still, I run
And still. I run?
Through the swamp
Through the trees
Through this forest
Of shattered dreams.
Why… do I run?
It’s not for father.
It’s not for mother.
It’s not for the god?Who never bothered.
bones splinter into my feet
tattered teeth from
children’s skulls,
and broken cartilage from?ah. I see.
this body isn’t just one of
mine,
It’s one of many.
hair, as fine as a violin’s
bow.
Feelings – left behind.
Somewhere.
Keen frost sinks in
its unforgiving fangs.
I succumb to the cold.
This Great Mire
consumes me.
again. again. again. again.

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The mire, borne
from past reflections,
that snap from my memory
like broken ribbons.
Pastures of azure
amidst agony, frozen
within a monster’s jaws.
Its frostbite fades into my
veins.
Again, within these beryl everglades
Enough.
Enough..
Enough!
Please.
I beg of you.
Enough is enough!

High above,
The harvest moon shines.
And I see it reflected,
within your scarlet eyes.
A face I cannot see,
Another mind, presented.
Like a dream within a
dream.
Residual thoughts tremor
Through lost woods
Of muddled blue.
You offer me a tome,
Bound in black stardust.
Its words its whispers
Like a serpent’s soft sigh.

“For each word that you
read,
You will yearn,
your blood will burn.
For my knowledge
Of perception.
Hand over your heart,
If you truly wish to learn.
It matters not how you
plead,
If you oblige by this
serpent’s creed.
Your only form of
payment is to bleed.”
Fooled by your black sugar
That covers my eyes
You tricked me.
For the tome that I opened,
its pages,
Much like my own soul,
Are vacant.
And the water floods into
My lungs
Again.
Empty words dissipating
Upon the surface of the
mire.

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The mire, borne
from past reflections,
that snap from my memory
like broken ribbons.
A child’s ribbon, torn from
her hair.
Ah.
I knew I had left these
thoughts,
Somewhere.
A book without words.
A mind without answers.
My tears hit the
parchment,
And text froths to the
surface.
A story.
I see a story here.
Its words reflecting
within shadows of blue-green.
And now,
Only now.
Do I see what you mean.
If I must repeat
This elegy.
If my pen cannot
Produce ink
Without agony is this vice worth taking?
And are these feelings
worth understanding?

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The skies are borne
from past reflections,
I can no longer remember
who the reflection is.
I have found myself,
Alas,
My soul remains,
Frozen within
This Elegy of the Glades.
My tears,
Turned to crystals
Within the mire.

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Skies that I reside within
Now, and forever

Folksy blokes, like ya struttin’ ya thang
If you’ve come out of da Grand Ole Opry
But, won’t stay around for any old music sang
If it’s causing their head, to bob up and down and go all floppy
While rugged mountain men riding in some country rodeo
Can just step right up, to a Appalachia recording studio
Put down several tracks and become a worldwide pop star
They sing about hillbilly ways, while cogging or flatfooting from afar
Talking ‘bout wild hogs, gators, foxes & how so many more
Taste so great, using leftovers as bait & making real men roar
Old fables, told through pictures and patterns, upon knitted quilt
Even showing the feuding days of the Hatfields versus McCoys
From both sides of Tug Fork stream, with many unemployed  
Although Asa and Devil Anse, said, ‘they hadn’t much guilt’
All because of a judge and 5000 acres of unusable swamp land
Once owned, by a close kissin’ cousin named, Perry Cline
Who didn’t even get any blood on his hand
They started a war, that could’ve been stopped
By a bottle or two, of good ole mountain moon-shine
Both clans almost wiped out, if last man standing had accidentally dropped.

Wandering through the bayou,
wrapped in its eerie embrace.
Mysterious and strange,
a magical place.
Never seeming to change,
even as seasons come and go,
swampy waters ebb to and fro.

Like long-lost daughters,
gnarled courtly cypress trees,
rise from black murky waters.
Draped lovingly in Spanish moss,
swaying softly in the breeze.
Butterflies seem to float across,
as gentle winds ruffle their leaves.

Bouquets of wild hibiscus fill the air,
mingled with sweet azaleas blooming there.
Bullfrogs croak and crickets chirp,
the bayou is awash with soothing music.
As dragonflies flit the cattails, elusive,
water moccasins slithering at your feet
or lurk above you in the trees.

Just as, the sun begins to sink low,
comes the faint sound of a fiddle and bow.
The gator comes out of hiding,
rising from the dark waters below.
Looking for his meal and smiling,
with snapping jaws, a deer is caught,
then taken below where he will rot.

The moon rises high into the night,
as fireflies glow in the twilight.
A voodoo queen slips into sight,
with gnarled hands, she rolls the bones.
Whispering cryptic words, she softly moans.
Tenderly she caresses her snake,
wrapped around and about her neck.

A ****-hound whoops it up.
The gnarled trees cast spooky shadows.
Is that the ghostly apparition of Jean Lafitte?
Who managed to escape prison and gallows.
Did you bury your treasure in the water or weeds?
As the wind moans softly, time to turn home,
where you can fill your belly with spicy gumbo.

ALesiach © 10/12/2014