#mississippi
They ask me, “Do you have a plan?”
I say, “I did my plan.”
They ask me, “Do you have another?”
My IV drips the same monotonous drip
And the catfish swim in it, releasing
Bubbles to my heart to fill me with
Some form of full I never feel
And I think of the Mississippi
I think of my mother's warning
Of the alligators, gar, and whirlpools
And I think that’s where my body belongs
Down in the mighty Mississippi
The great river my father played pirate on
The one whose call took him from his love
The river my grandfather built monuments to
To tame, to quell, because that’s what a man does
Stolen land and water, polluted by him
I think of how soft the mud must be
A cushioned pillow for my bones to rest
Crowned with cattails and pondweed
How the water might fill me like the bubbles
From my IV drip, drip, dripping
And the catfish smiles at me, his whiskers
Gleaming in the artificial fluorescence
Of the suicide watch room lights
They say, “Drowning is the worst way to go”
But I smile, and I say to them and the catfish
“I think that’s where my body belongs”
May 18, 2025
May 18, 2025 at 12:58 AM UTC
The silver moon
falls
from sight
as the rising tide
kisses
adjacent piers.
The cool morning
rests
over the gentle bay
as clouds
commute
covering the light of day.
Brown thrashers rhythmically
mimic
stolen song
as they
traverse
the canal.
Barefoot toes
roam
freely
frequenting familiar
footpaths.
Minute minnow mouths
toy
with the bait
bobbing
the cork.
Experienced hands
handle
seafood
adopting its scent
while the blue *****
boil
into crimson.
Afternoon showers
cool
the earth
as a mysterious moon
lowers
the tide.
Night
falls
again
in Mississippi.
Jun 6, 2023
Jun 6, 2023 at 4:21 PM UTC
The Venetian Red fish
Slithers through the magentic sky,
Sniffing the violence of electromagnetic vibrations,
I, behind the branchia, spur her/him on,
Far away, the sight of thunder rumbling and static,
Feeling the inky indigo of the mirage of toothy desire.
Hearing cold textures of slippery fishy scales,
Tasting the black velvet Jesus, Elvis, and Nixon,
Our banner.
Oh, that can’t possibly happen said Jonah,
As he was enveloped by exactly that,
A piercing cacophony of clashing color
That resolved itself into the image of his ex.
No more, no more.
The red fish jumped the river Stix,
Halting at the 7-11 from hell.
A seventh circle infernal Powerball anyone?
A hellish scratchie tempts my soul.
But my lucky number is a binary: 1-oh,1-oh, 1-oh.
That’s hell for you, unsymmetrical.
Needed, perhaps a chance encounter,
with an itinerant puzzle person
Would they sort the senses and find truth?
Could that help or should it?
He winks and I don’t believe her.
A stolen kiss thrown
At the 2018 Little League Playoffs at Southaven, Mississippi
Still echoes in their brain pans and mine too.
The dull stylus of dangerous thrills
scratched my pancreas as Jim shoveled his lunch.
But I have better manners than that.
In the chaotic magentic atmosphere,
I mount my scarlet stead,
and move on-- as you should too.
Adieu. Adieu. Adieu.
Jul 31, 2021
Jul 31, 2021 at 6:23 AM UTC
Took me to the wrong end of the Mississippi
Blown north from the whistling blues
Dreamt that sweet sound of saxophones
Coloring St. Claude Avenue
Banana leaves melted into evergreens
Where the swamps finally ran cold
Through the mountain ranges of the lakes, and banjos of the plains
Where the countryside grew quiet and old
I grew up on the wrong end of the Mississippi
But now I’m taking that southbound train
Oh honey don’t ask me how I’ve been
It’s a restless, lonesome pain
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 1:35 PM UTC
Nature, too, is self-consuming.
Even the grandest oak
of all southern Louisiana
will be uprooted in a hurricane.
The moss that grazes the water
with gentle finger tips
from those weary branches
will be swallowed by the water.
An old man's life spent in Houma
is reflected in the river currents;
his house built on stilts
across from the cemetery
where is wife is buried
next to her eldest son.
It meets the Mississippi
not surrendering,
returning
Jul 12, 2017
Jul 12, 2017 at 9:02 PM UTC
A ride today in Des Moines
that appraise law and counteract
any that country may enact
where Wichita lineman forthwith
and mackinaw shall really embellish
furthermore with Granny Smith
awhile down stream on a riverboat
that foregoing is never behind
where a river is always wide
and bourgeois with a paddle wheel stride
why his atropine smile
reach the delta with such desire
and let him take the home route
in an abode of parish shanty
where river dance makes day long
a simple beast, a man
with chinchilla wrap round his neck
that sweep her off flourishing deck
these stratospheric ideals now
for sovereign witness entail campaign.
May 29, 2017
May 29, 2017 at 6:52 AM UTC
the Mississippi starts small,
at the headwaters.
A child can cross
stone to stone, almost slipping
into cold water.
Sometimes they do fall,
but stumbling and soaking wet,
they finish crossing.
Now, these blue-gray stones
and clear rippling currents still
sound like their laughter.
Apr 1, 2017
Apr 1, 2017 at 2:47 PM UTC
*I will never tell you how I imagined my suicide in the shower
How I watched myself take the frozen metal rails
And lifted my one shaking leg over the bridge
And stared down at the ice cold, daunting gaze of the great Mississippi
How I closed my eyes and pictures your face
While the cold pierced my skin and my woes pierced my heart
I will never tell you the effort it took to slid my other leg over the railing and step into my coffin
Watching the river crash it's arms against the ice
I will never say how terror gripped my insides knowing that this beast would swallow me whole
Yet knowing I cannot swim gives me comfort
Once I fall the water will push me under, beneath its arms and into it's belly
I will never tell you how time froze as I fell
My face casted towards the stars
The cold wind holding me suspended in air for a few granted moments as I whisper my goodbyes
Goodbye moon, my lips shake against the syllables
Goodbye love, my eyes damp with defeat
Goodbye fear, my heart thrumming in my chest
Goodb-*
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 10:53 PM UTC
Yesterday
Was in the ecstasy
Of realizing that
We were
Those two
On earth
Who liked bitter gourd curry
Cooked with coconut milk ….
Remember?
Think it was
In the sixth life.
We were
Two nascent bitter guards
On the pandal
Spread in the northern corner
Of the farmland
Belonging to a grandmother
In a village in Mississippi
Who used to attend to the orchards
Sitting in a wheelchair.
We had
Watched earth
And peeked
At the sky
Hanging from the same stalk
The scar left
From your tight clasp on my thigh
Scared
After spotting a double tailed pest
Is still there.
The pleasure of that pain
Makes me tearful now.
I am like the faces
In the house of deceased
Sobbing
At times
Bursting into tears
The next moment
Holding back
After a while.
Sometimes
I am all the faces
In the house of the dead
Tears have
Nothing to do with them.
Sometimes
The wedding house
Will laugh and laugh
Till its cheeks hurt.
Just like you.
My dear bitter guard,
When will we
Go back to that
Pandal in Mississippi
Where we had pulsated
From a single stalk?
Aren’t we the ones
To offer obsequies
To that grandmother
Who looked after us
With pots
Of wholehearted love?
Translator - Shyma P
Shyma P : Works in Payyanur College, Payyanur. Translator and film critic. Has translated poems and articles in Malayalam Literary Survey, The Oxford India Anthology of Malayalam Dalit Literature, online magazines like Gulmohar, Readleaf Poetry as well as scripts and subtitles for short films.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 8:43 PM UTC
for Robin
On that frosted January day,
you and I hiked north
along the Mississippi shore
on a trail marked well before us.
Footfall tapestries etched in snow
wove tales of assiduous commerce
of hosts of fur-cloaked cousins:
the playful step-slide gambit of an otter -
rabbit paw tracks by the score.
A bald eagle soared above singing ripples
in quest of a mid-day meal.
The distant staccato cadence
of a pileated woodpecker
echoed off the limestone bluffs
on that January afternoon.
Dusk-light washed the western sky
in pastel gold and crimson hues.
A coal barge heading south
thundered against the floes,
scattering ice across the channel,
then vanished beyond the bend.
And we like bargemen at their tillers,
set our southward course
retracing footprints in the snow -
back to the world of clocks and enterprise.
January, 2011
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 6:14 AM UTC
Father and son.
Both verbs when you abbreviate their names.
Share a last name of course.
Even a first letter.
One, the current homophobic governor of Mississippi.
The other, a happy interior designer of Austin.
I wish in my Mississippi public school I could teach,
That Shakespeare ain't got nothing on this kind of irony.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 7:52 AM UTC
What year is it in Mississippi?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell,
You’d think in the 21st century,
We’d be able to tell time well.
Talking slow and taking it slow is okay
At least for most of the time
But there’s a big difference in drawling what you say,
And never reaching your prime
What year is it in Mississippi?
I don’t think it has its own zone.
Surely it’s impossible for the entire state
To have their watches on loan.
What year is it in Mississippi?
They seem so hopelessly behind,
Most other states quickly recognize
That her flag is hatred-lined.
What year is it in Mississippi?
Sorry, but I have to ask,
First in everything bad, and last in anything good,
To even tie with another state seems an impossible task.
Because when you act like you’re still in the past,
You’re going to keep being last.
And passed.
And bashed.
And masked.
And trashed.
No one thinks it’s hopeless yet
Or that the whole state is obscene,
I just hate to break it to Mississippi
That it is 2015.
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 3:42 PM UTC
We can wait ten years to change the flag,
Or another whole generation.
We can turn this thing into just a snag
or rebuild from the foundation.
We can change the confederate flag tomorrow
Or just wait around til we’re last,
We can bring the next fifty years some sorrow
Or mark it as a thing of the past.
We can get made fun of by every other state
First place in everything bad,
Or we can start to fix our problems with hate,
And make being actually first the new fad.
We can cling to a symbol of hate and loss,
And pretend it’s simply tradition,
Or we can dispose of that top-left cross
And avoid all of the opposition
Because Mississippi,
We can wait a week, a month or a year,
It really is a choice.
But the flag is going to change, it’s clear,
With or without your voice.
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 3:40 PM UTC
Earthworms dead on the sidewalk,
Maybe they're lucky--
It's also fishing season.
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 10:09 PM UTC
You got to know what for, Babe, you got nothin' to lose,
Just like ev'rybody else in the whole **** world.
You gotta break on through
To the other side of your sad attitude,
But you can't shake off
Them muddy Mississippi Bluez.
Well, Hell! She's beatin' on a drum
And she's gettin pretty loose.
Seems like ev'rybody else in the whole **** world
Is comin' down on her
And standin' on some plattitude.
She's just tryin' to groove
To the muddy Mississippi Bluez.
Up and down the water,
You watch the riverboats cruise,
As you drink against the tree beneath a sky of blue.
Sleep wants to take you,
But Honey, you refuse.
You gotta pay your dues
To the muddy Mississippi Blues.
Life along the delta can be simple and fine,
When the stills fill the jugs and the full moon shines.
You're gonna make it through
When you find a little gratitude.
So give your praise
To the muddy Mississippi Bluez
"Well, Hell! Take me away,
Muddy Mississippi.
I know I can count on you.
To stain my soul
Like muddy Mississippi goo.
I owe it all
To the muddy Mississippi Bluez!"
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 4:23 PM UTC
head shoved in the bath
open eyes to see the porcelain
in stunning watercolour
counting
one mississippi
two Mississippi
to see the moments passing
against supposedly blurred off-white tub bottom
uncracked egg-shell backdrop of clock faces
tick mississippi tock mississippi
blinking short and long seconds
from twelve to twelve
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 1:22 AM UTC
There was sunshine coming off of her
Blues and cream dripping from her lips down the crease of her smile
Pooling in the corners of those cheeks
Neon and tangible
The warmth irradiating from the swirls of her fingers
Southern hues
Her intonations dancing between the half moons between her index and middle fingers
Her skin shines
Mississippi mud runs clear over the rivers that dance beneath her collarbone
You can hear it flutter with the clouds
Her heartbeat
It stills the fields she runs through
There was sunshine coming off of her
Whispering strawberry sweetness
Tingeing the souls we carry on our feet.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 3:39 AM UTC