"bayous" poems
To future conquering civilizations
in galaxies far far away . . .
don't worry about polluting the air,
our smokestacks have shot dirty-bombs
into the clouds for centuries,
mixing rain drops with the
black grime of industrialization,
transforming our children's tears
into cesspools of sulfuric acid and ddt.
We've also drained the bayous and swamps
and between you and me
don't even bother landing in Africa
there isn't suitable drinking water
for miles, you see.
You can thank years of colonization for that.
In fact, you may not want to land
on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Thursdays
in LA either-
on those days the air quality index
is 175 and far too unhealthy for any
biological organism to survive.
But at least you won't die of malnutrition
you've got decisions:
McDonald's or Burger King
choose
cholesterol and diabetes are your shock troops.
Send them in immediately,
there won't be much resistance
we've got these things call lazy boys
and daytime t.v which have
enslaved the population and decreased
the distance
between fully functioning
human beings and mindless apes.
Don't worry about bringing weapons
we've got those too
we've perfected the art of blowing each other away
there's not much for you to do.
we destroy cities with fire from the sky
and our mushroom clouds rise
at least ten miles high.
And god can't see, there's too much smoke
in his eyes
and our radiated children die
with radiated sighs.
While we are on the topic
don't worry about us spreading
propaganda
we've lost the ability to communicate.
We've learned
books turn a peculiar dark yellow
when lighted and burned.
And forget erasing history,
we've done that too.
Our subjugation of native peoples
is masked as 'patriotism'
under the red, white, and blue.
But don't get me wrong,
I tell you all
of this not to dissuade,
please come and attack,
please come and invade.
Here, I'll even turn
on the lights . . .
Dec 23, 2012
Dec 23, 2012 at 9:06 PM UTC
Forget me not my love
on those cold lonely nights
when quiet is our home
empty are your arms.
Forget me not
when you awaken
with suns morning light
shining upon an empty bed
where normally I lay upon
Forget me not my dear
when winter's breath
has touched the once
warm country side
where hand in hand
we strolled along
bayous slowly flowing
where moss crowned oaks
line our paths.
Forget me not my darling
for never far am I
no matter the miles
or days apart
I'm always in your heart.
Forget me not my dear
you'er always in my thoughts
remembering how I love you
how I long for your embrace.
Forget me not oh love of mine
for soon our time will be.
Where once again we unite
to bathe in love evermore.
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 10:09 PM UTC
There is no night like a bayou night,
the air pregnant with expectancy and
mystery, mingling scents of wisteria,
trumpet honeysuckle and gumbo mud -
a Dark Ages alchemist seeking an elusive
golden fragrance. It's a night dark despite
the nearly full moon, a night in which
fireflies pulsate as so many flickering
neon bulbs and the cacophony of insects
reaches toward an unattainable crescendo.
Mammoth cypress trees line the bayous,
letting fall Spanish moss as strands of ghostly
gray-green hair, and the oppression of dark
is waiting just beyond the searching lantern.
At times the wind moans like a sated lover,
at other times it howls wildly, but it's always
present and always vocal to those who
would listen. There could be fear in such nights,
or there can be a love of the mysteries inherent
with the bayous - I choose the love of the bayous.
*I lived in Louisiana about nine years,
and there are many things about that
state I still love - bayous being one of them.*
--
Dec 18, 2011
Dec 18, 2011 at 4:45 PM UTC
What is happening right now...
You say I feel like native petals
of somewhere you've never been.
Soft and mysterious,
exotic and raw.
Bewitching you to absorb the aura.
My web in which you spin.
I say you feel like steel
surrounded by marsh in deep bayous.
Strong and intriguing,
arcane and fierce.
Luring me to immerse in your essence.
Your web in which I spin.
Backwards it seems we have tumbled into each other...
Bodies knowing
new flesh.
Minds welcoming
familiar allies.
Spirits embracing
old friends.
Connecting erupts
a verbal rampage.
Words spilling on top of one another.
Passing sentences half formed
back and forth.
Beginning of my thoughts
turns into ends of your understanding.
The sun hasn't risen and slept
in the time we have mesmerized each other.
But yet you say you feel like
you've known me your whole life.
Like a shadow that's been around
just never taking form...
And I can't agree more.
So I say nothing...
Just sit here and not think and adore,
your passionate voice, your shy laugh, your tempered sighs,
your fluid movement, your assailable face, your unimpeded body.
I unknowingly mimic you and you me and we dance intuitively.
Until we exhaust ourselves to sleep.
Who knows if tomorrow will bury our today...
© NDHK
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 4:54 AM UTC
I've watched a video on hamsters™
that reminded me of you
between your riddles and answers,
the tired mother on the rearview mirror.
Many times do I wonder
as you opened the door
with your yellow hair
falling on shoulders
nothing to say
naked
nothing to do
as you stroked and stroked
and stroked.
"Do you love me
- like I do?"
But then again I'm also doomed
to slit my wrists under the moon:
that same old moon, already missed.
Black rickety bridges
upon bayous and flowers
Stephen King's novel, then devoured:
let's go to Albuquerque,
and count the rings
around my eyes.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 11:36 AM UTC
Before the hurricane, in my youngest years things were extremely different
My outlook on Louisiana was a place of water and happiness
I was six years old, and boating was what I did for fun every single day
Boating was what basketball is to me today, a treasure, an outlet
The bayous were alive, the marshes were green, and the trees fruitful
You could smell the salty mud, (which smells very different from a beach)
Our white propeller boat sped to the lake, and lake mist sprayed our faces
Fishermen and crabbers littered the banks, pulling in flailing lively catches
We ate the fruits of their labor at the Cajun restaurant on the bayou, inwards
This was no commercial place, but only the locals had ever been
It was rough, light blue paint peeling, men with grey beards laughing
And the smell of fresh fried catfish had taken over the place,
Perhaps the most unique thing about it was the way to get to it, strictly by boat
My childhood is colorfully painted with these memories, however,
The real life experiences have been swept away in the muddy currents
The restaurant was knocked off its stilts and demolished,
The trees now branchless, dead, and the marshes are hues of yellow and brown
No longer is the water lively, but still, no longer is it safe to dive to the bottom
For fear of remains of houses, boats, glass puncturing our bodies
I consider myself lucky to get to experience that everyday, the bayou was my backyard
That was the Louisiana that is on postcards, not the usual experience of suburbs
That was the Louisiana I used to know, the Louisiana that is no more in my life
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 12:28 PM UTC
For all the women in my family who have come before me.
I vow now
to give myself the space to be kind to myself when I am faced
with our family pattern of self-hate
I will not spit in my face and demolish myself
I will stand with forgiveness
dripping from my eyes
I vow now
to utilize the opportunity
I have been given
of being free from the burden of being molested or ***** as a child,
I vow to respect myself, share my body with this respect
give my partner this respect and dance
the life giving creation song with a heart
fleshy and vulnerable
landscapes of plains and bayous rising up across my skin, my folds will nestle medicine gardens
Inside of my ears I will plant Ceder trees
I will step into my strength, into my power I will rise
like a hot air current moving from the land up to the sky to form storm clouds
in a system of elegant design
I recognize
with this mighty power comes the power to be gentler still
so whilst the storm plays her play, I will also maintain
the quivering softness of a spring stream
high up in the mountains green
long grass wildflowers
melt from within me
fragrance heavenly.
For all of us I vow
to live a life where I utilize the power I have inherited
and I thank you
with these actions,
I write your songs in my movements
Your strength, poise, grace, ambition and genius has not gone in vain
Your stories live on inside of my veins
with these words I call out to you.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 3:32 AM UTC
Down in the Hills of the
Mississippi River Valley
Between the Bluffs and
The river bank in Lansing
Is a Friend named Joe Price,
Born to Play the Blue's
Raised on Farming as a Boy,
Yet was a need he could not lose
He listened to Muddy Waters
And ran out to buy a Guitar
An old 1947 12 String National
Resonator with the Steel Core
He rapped his fingers around
Till his blues skills got honed
He was Destined to play with
Legends like John Lee ******
Willie Dixon and Clifton Chenier
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
Along with Muddy Waters and Me
I know I'm no legend but I can't Refuse
When Joe ask me to Sit in on a Knee Slappin'
Hand Clappin version of the Hobo Blues
His work boot stomped a beat
On an old flat piece of wood
As that steel Slide made that Guitar Cry
A Legend behind the Scenes he's
Played from the North down to
The Louisiana Back Bayous
And everything in Between
You'll Never Know that feeling
As the Hair stands on your Neck
This hardly known old Hobo
Was a Legend what the Heck
Till you get a chance to listen
To his Train whistle slide Moan
That 12 string Steel Guitar Tone
That sounds so very Nice
From an Unknown Legend
Name of Joe Price
His Music can be found on http://www.joepriceblue.com/
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 5:11 PM UTC
You used to live in the lush
shallow dip
of my lips
and set sail
nightly
down the moon bright bayous
of my body,
determined explorer
slipping through
latitudes of
longing.
Celestial navigation—
no North Star
but constellations
of temptations.
You wanted to know the shape of my world.
Dec 30, 2010
Dec 30, 2010 at 2:04 PM UTC
It’s the sound of peeling wallpaper,
Damp seeping in from the frost bitten windows.
Daytime traffic on Christmas eve,
And misted breath between pages of Pound,
Eliot and Rimbaud.
It’s the sound of mouldy drapes,
Clutched to the rail that clings to the rust.
The hiss and crackle of today,
And the wave of the colonial - of Guthrie,
Williams and Seeger.
It’s the sound of a Tangier typewriter,
Clacking to the chimes of a generation.
The scrawl of freedom
And the echoes of our fathers – of Kerouac,
Ginsberg and Burroughs.
It’s the sound of the swamp,
A hoodoo beat winding through the ruins.
From bayous to boroughs,
Following the march of Washington,
Franklin and Jefferson.
It’s the anthem of a teenage disease,
The force of the Devil’s crossroads.
The returning of a light, obscured
In the ruins of time.
It’s the song of the tambourine,
And the lasting footsteps of a song and dance man.
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 5:54 PM UTC
Oscillating pulse blood
makes perfect puddles
Makes swamps and marshes and wild bayous
Puddles of thick sticky gloopy innards soak red **** carpet
In roadside motels
Where we took turns on a parlytic ***** and he cried the ***** time
You mean the whole time?
Stop daddy stop! Everything makes me uncomfortable.
No it's fine, everything is always fine.
Oct 7, 2011
Oct 7, 2011 at 8:15 PM UTC
*I believe in the tower bells
They strike the hour without fail
They echo through hill country sunny dales
Through pecan arbors and woodland trails
On moonlit avenues
O'er the lakeside bayous
To the chorus of a thousand blackbirds
Through nightfalls wind chatter , twist and turns*
Jun 2, 2017
Jun 2, 2017 at 9:07 PM UTC
*Nothing to do in a cloudburst
with the exception of watching new rivers control the avenues
Whirlpools choking storm drains ,
town squares becoming bayous
Colorful umbrellas in every direction
Townspeople quicken their pace , seeking protection
Big trucks sending puddles airborne ,
fastidious Pigeons bathing in the Summer
storm
Would give a blue nickel to join in
on the fun , a needed break from the August Sun* ...
Aug 10, 2016
Aug 10, 2016 at 4:24 PM UTC
“Why, then, God’s soldier be he.”
-Shakespeare
“I’m Old Man Briggs,” he laughed, shaking my hand
That famous merry twinkle in his eye;
He made the table at the ******* Barrel
A festival of right good fellowship
But even as the plates were passed around
And with them too the happy banter of men
He sometimes seemed to drift away in thought
Into the past, into the mists, into -
His boyhood bayous, and the fields of youth
The desperation of Depression years
And still a boy, on the shingle at Normandy
Fighting across the smoky fields of France
Then home again to build the peace for us
With muscle and sweat, and with love and thought
Citizen-soldier, happy raconteur -
“I’m Old Man Briggs,” he laughed, shaking our hands
His place is empty now, just a little while
For we will see him again, at Supper
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 5, 2018 at 4:24 PM UTC