Spring peepers peep in newly warmed wetlands, bullfrogs nerver peep.

When swirls of heavy air begin to
Curl up in the
Core of your
Throat and
To speak is a
Feat you
Don’t wish to
Endure
Because you
Fear a
Frog will
Leap out in place of
Thought-out
Words and you
Can’t risk that;
Can’t process the
Unspeakable,
No pun intended

So assume your worst about my
Desert-dry lips and my
Purple-bagged eyes and my
Shuffling trot.
But truth be told,
You know the feeling of
Tadpoles growing into
Bullfrogs
In the pit of your
Voicebox
And you avoid those people
At all costs
So the frog won’t leap
From my throat to yours,
Good luck.

Where we shoveled coal into the furnace was an inconsiderable door. Behind it held ***** chubby cherubs with cherry tomato noses, whose job it was to keep the fires of our parent's liquor cabinets full. This they did to keep them from constantly beating us, but the happy distraction did not always work. So, we would pluckily go. Go to the scuzzy pond at dusk with kerosine lanterns and listen for croaks. We tied forks to the ends of canes or stakes and would gig bullfrogs for dinner. It became only momentarily mortifying, but was always a choice way of ridding our sisters and other clingy girls of our company. We'd fry the legs in cornstarch and pepper flakes and be allowed to share with the adults their beer if it was a good catch. Usually, it was. Most of forever we waited for teaberry season, always the best time of the year. Though it was hotter than Beelzebub's bath water we'd go swimming in that **** pond to reach our favorite teaberry patches. This ensured our riches and fame throughout our Appalachian village. Everyone would eat teaberry ice cream and sing our names and no one beat us on those days.

Having defied gravity
(not me personally
but by proxy
namely through
a dog, monkey and Soyuz
and fruit flies and bullfrogs
and lately through NASA)
I defy humility
I brave it, I challenge it
for there’s too much hypocrisy
in humility
For humility is such
that it never speaks its name
For when it speaks of Humility
it is Sans Humility
Take me
for example -
you hardly hear me
mention myself as Saint Humility, do you?
But that’s what I am, my other name: Humility
But people keep insisting on calling me Saint Humility
But I defy Humility


POSTSCRIPT
I also defy repetition
and over-emphasis
and contradiction, paradox
But, it must not be left unsaid -
in defying humility,
I think I’ve also
quite inadvertently
defined humility: *Saint Me

JIMMY WIMBLETON listened a first week in June.
Ditches along prairie roads of Northern Illinois
Filled the arch of night with young bullfrog songs.
Infinite mathematical metronomic croaks rose and spoke,
Rose and sang, rose in a choir of puzzles.
They made his head ache with riddles of music.
They rested his head with beaten cadence.
Jimmy Wimbledon listened.

I notice tadpoles
Wearing push-ups
To look like bullfrogs.

Though the bullfrogs sing
sweet soothing melody,
I cannot sleep.

How strange it must be,
to live in the countryside -
to fall asleep to the sound of crickets under your window,
and bullfrogs croaking in the creek.

So far from the sirens -
the Los Angeles Screamers -
tearing through the floodlit nights,
picking us off, one at a time,
huddled in our houses,

alone, together.

As rainfall breaks its banks
Of concrete, potholes, and dust
Men in yellow jackets
Descend on the makeshift
Flooded car park
Its tea-coloured, temporary pool

With a bare left hand
And a green sack each
They pull bullfrogs from their throat song
In the shadow of my high-rise
I cannot make out the struggles

That, without doubt, ensue inside the sack
Limb entangled with limb,
Body upon body
Blind save for the odd cadence
And crack of light

Deaf in the caterwaul of disorientated
Angry males forcing a lifetime
Of movement into their last few moments
By sunrise half will be dead
Whilst the others dry out in the sun
Get shifted onto half-melted ice
And eaten once the sun
Goes down again

All will be still in the end

***** from the bottle,
Warm.
Hot dogs from the package,
When your down and *****
The grotesque becomes magic.
Pawning a guitar for a pellet gun,
To procure breakfast.
Squirrel stew in the back of a scamper camper.
Spotlighting bullfrogs,
And mopping floors for a hot meal,
And a cold beer,
And a sympathetic ear.
Nights when the blacktop turned into void,
And the painted lines became a tightrope to nowhere.
Full circle,
Bangor to Frisco,
Any woman who was willing to sleep in the bed of a truck
Was a queen for as long as she stayed,
Always had **** concealed on me,
The copper piece of road currency,
To the gold and silver, of *** and gas.
The exchange rates would change overnight,
But syphon some gas at a truck stop
And it all will be alright.
Misspent youth, following bands
And getting lost along the way.
***** from the bottle,
And hot dogs from the package.

Cool, gentle air
glides across my face.
Strains of hydrangeas
mingle with THC
and sweet, cheap, fermented
grain alcohol.

The stillness
knocks the breath from
My lungs.
Wafts of voices drift
across the swaying trees
mingling
with the steady chirp of
crickets and a lone car puttering
in the distance.

A gentle whistle
Like the start of piano concerto
No. 15
crescendes
to the roar
Of a thousand bullfrogs
Straining to hit a high note.

Trees bow
To the iron god,
Voices melt into the grating
Metal monster
Declaring their
Subservience.

The air rushes and then
Disappears
Just as suddenly
And the voices return
and the crickets hum their
chorus
and the stillness
whispers
crescendos
screams.

Everyone is Noble
Until they have to walk thru the underground Sewers of The Soul

To Save The Diamond Light of Innocence

Everyone is  Noble
Until they have to crawl out from under the Severed Limbs of Alliances

Sold  to the New Super  Code of Greed

Everyone is Noble
Until they have to Drop their Wills in Order to hold the Life of a Free Society To  Their Heart

Alone.......

Yes
Everyone is Noble

This Fight is for the Free Soul
In A
Free Society

Throw the Bullfrog
off the Cross ing

Streaming sunlight and horse tails lightly swaying in the breeze, flicked lazily at gadflies.
Hoarse dove cries echo hauntingly as I wander across lush grass, towards the murky pond.
Dry, splintery boards of the rickety grey dock creak under my feet. Stone still, opaque brown-green water lies beneath. I close my eyes, resting my hands on the railing, letting the euphonious melody of rasping doves, cheeky robins, and other chirping birds blend with the bubbling sound of running water in the distance, and wash over me. The water bubbles and froths, it has a foamy sound, not as clear and ringing as streams and fountains back home.
Carefree.
Bullfrogs splish and dart into the silty pondweed.
It’s all as if this little world requires no purpose, it’s enough that it simply... is.
If only I could find peace in simply existing. Freedom to just be.

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

Can't sleep again.
Guilt in my head,
spinning, leaping,
autumn leaves,
bullfrogs and song lyrics.
Dice or bingo *****,
which one comes up first?
Again, again,
remember to slow down,
and Olivar favorite parts.
When they were ours,
when we belonged.
log, sixty-six percent,
percentage of original,
original sin, seven sins, se7en,
Sin of Cortez,
tea, teaz me,
Olivar favorite parts.
Can't sleep again.
The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas.
Salem, O.
Greyhound, stick-on roses,
cigarette smoke,
choke in my lungs,
stink on my clothes,
desperation in skinny jeans
and step-dads tranquilizers,
the open window beckons,
sleeping beauty, Rapunzel.
Tangled web,
Charlotte with 8 legs,
and a Durok below,
hounds howl, bellow, yodel
at the moon above,
desperate for a life long gone,
adventures never known.
Indiana Jones, satchel and lasso.
Or was it a whip?

Flies swarm when the floodlights come on.
They **** and they fight, live and die.
In the space of an hour
turf becomes a bed of glass wings-
none are left
straining for the light.
It looks like a mass suicide.
Eggs hatch in the sweat of night.
Tachycardic at birth,
one brief exultation
enough to still the lung,
nullify the heart.
Yawn out of existence,
bullfrogs croak miserably
as bodies fall from the sky.
You ask me why I cannot sleep-
I saw a thousand deaths tonight.

I strolled, awhile, down by that bog
Through thick, astringent, swirling fog....
Perchance, perhaps, in circumstance
I fancied that the reeds did dance,
Swayed in time to pulsing beat
Expanding in round ripples, neat,
To radiate across the pond
In league with moss of ferny frond.
Causing spider webs to sway
Through which the dewdrops came to play
In iridescent beams of light
Illuminating shards of night
Which cast a most unearthly glow
That only frogs in bogs, would know.....
And know they did from ancient time
Where bullfrogs ruled in slippery slime
When incandescence filled the glade
Whilst time stood still and mayflies played.

Dancing in the fantasy of Patty's Pond.
With love M.

Each ripple at her shore perfect , every panfish feeding just below the surface held with upmost respect ..
A repository of turbulent waters awarded peace , a placid impoundment delivering solace to all it's fortunate recipients ..
Canadian Geese are quite familiar with her charms , bullfrogs and killdeer speak of her beauty with Summer songs ..
The calls of numerous songbirds fill the Springtime air , Largemouth Bass crash at the top of the water , breaking the afternoon silence ..
Georgia Pines shade her Northern front , blackberry thickets just beyond the Western shore , Blue Herons quietly forage in the shallow waters , she is the emboldened mother of countless natural wonders* ...

The gaze feels suited under reflection,
catfish know better
than the bullfrogs haranguing it alone -
Midnight's rupture
the star Edith blazed her Gospel voice
across the Phoenix Star,
those podagra Svengalis mill
perpetually serenading this their dollar sign,
due graciousness lasts as long as the
peyote nostrums
parfum de la maison

Grandma,

WHAT OF THE CORNER--  that you now no longer sit. the bed that you will no longer lay.

What of the pastels-- that you now no longer use. the soft tones of amber and pink. the pale blue shadow that silenced your eyes.

What of the lily pads-- on the surface ripples. of the pond you once watched us play in. the chair that rocked until it cracked. splintered right down the middle.  

What of the poppies-- that you placed in my hair. that you helped me blow 'dream wishes' into. the poppies that tickled me. What of grandpa, poppy?

LIKE GREEN when it turns to brown. like pastel powder on an envelope,
you fade with time.  

You left this place with nothing more than what you came here with, a presence. an empty room,
now, misplaced.

New milk and cookies, hide the old, mellow yellow, kitchen countertops. fresh cut poppies, are now six ninety-nine.  

The old barn, that I once slept in, because of that hard summer day's humid warmth, was torn down last spring, and a new house, with a new family, got put in its place.

YES... like green when it turns to brown. like the powder from your old pastels that would stick on to my fingertips like there was no lettin' go. like yellow frostin on cake. i remember you. or at least, i try to keep that one happy image that is left of you:

In the barn--
when you awoke me from my sleep.

In the fields--
where you would sit and watch me play.

In the corner--
of that old house where you once sat.

In the lily pads--
where the bullfrogs still sing.

They taught us in primary school to rhyme;
One million separate identities of the lovesick took it as an invitation.
You might think that’s a rebuke. It is not.
It is meant as an invitation. Every word, in weft and weave,
In wave and tide, in sigh and heave.
It calls for another to love us. It tells us to never love again.
At the first breath of rhyme in elementary-
Some nonsense about frogs and banks and water over our hands
We are hooked. We are starving. We are addicts.
We want to chime. We want to sing.
We want to love with words.

The peacock proud, pushed out his chest
As giant bullfrogs croak their best.
Alone, yet never lonely.

Dawn breaks and day now beckons
To work  we soon will go in seconds.
Alone, yet never lonely.

As giant bullfrogs croak their best
The factory bells succumb their test.
Alone, yet never lonely.

To work we soon will go in seconds
God looks on all of Life and reckons.
Alone, yet never lonely.

The factory bells succumb their test
As life begins anew with zest.
Alone, yet never lonely.

And God will watch the nations’ health
For there He knows is real wealth.
Alone, yet never lonely.

As life begins anew with zest
The peacock proud, pushed out his chest.
Alone, yet never lonely.


©Joe Wilson – Lauds…2016 (with full appreciation of W H Auden)

Summer night, heavy with humming:
static hisses from tree hollows,
crickets tick in the garden.
A still life:
bone crunch, tree crack, macaw

Static hisses from tree hollows,
black sap clots the soil.
bone crunch, tree crack, macaw.
Bullfrogs bellow, the scuttle of thunder.

Black sap boils then clots
the rim of a fire, aroma of rosemary.
Thunder shatters the shutters.
A still life:
pea snap, wind murmur, husks

The fire smolders, damp halo of ash.
Hoot owls call to the moon,
ask their question.

bone crunch, tree crack, macaw.
pea snap, wind murmur, dawn.

                                                                                 -km

Sitting down by the pond the other evening,
Taking in the sunset and listening to how nature puts her children to bed,
I happened to notice my amphibian friends.

Now, I love sounds, loud ones, soft ones, booming, and whispers.  
Got a right fetish for listening to nature.

As I sat there entranced, my ears started picking out different frog calls.  
You know, them boy frogs trying to sound all handsome and friendly to get a wink from their girlfriends.  
And not just the frogs either, ya know, there's some toads out there too.

I was hearing big ole Bullfrogs, boomin' louder than a drum in a parade.
Tiny spring peepers, with their loud high pitched sharp peeps.

There was Fowler's Toads out there too, sounding like ole Henry stuck a knife in his wife's chest, and she screamed for her life.

Them there grey tree frogs, well they are somethin'.  
Chatterin' like a monkey missin' his bananas.

And don't get me started on those green frogs, boy howdy, they can twang with the best of em.  
Right funny if you don't mind me saying.

But, that trilling those American toads do, out shining those short trillin' Western Chorus frogs evra time, is somethin' else.  
Why they can hold a note pert near a full three minutes.

Never can tell how rich wild life is around ya til ya sit a spell and take a listen.  
You may not see 'em out there, but shore nuf, life's a going on.

Grass finds its way
between my toes
tickling my feet
as spiders scamper away
as if I am Godzilla
and each blade
a building.

Earth smells warm
and air smells sweet.
Spring dies
as tall grass
falls to the ground
and leaves adorn trees.

Birds fly
for the first time
in their lives.
Bullfrogs
serenade me
while coyotes
have parties.

People
outdoors
everywhere
with green thumbs
and hats
and ***** fingernails.

This is my moon.

july 16 2011
the air stuck to my skin,
clinging for life,
grasping for adhesion.
the cool, night air making minuscule mountains rise all across my arms.
we were far from alone,
yet all i could possibly be aware of was you.
feeling my head roll back onto the tweed, orange sofa, i looked up through the roof windows of the teepee.
i began to count and trace the stars,
only to steady my rapid heartbeat and abrupt breathing.
the breeze picks up and suddenly penetrates deep into my core,
sending out waves of shudders throughout my entire body.
shaking like a dandelion in a windstorm, you invite me closer and closer,
you can see the look of hesitation in my eye,
you understand it;
you feel it too.
ignoring your instincts, you envelop my frigid torso in your warm, big arms.
finally settling in, the others begin to disperse,
one by one,
until only we remained.
the beauty of this mid-july night was apparent,
and, all tucked away,
we laid there for hours
listening
intently
to the bullfrogs, to the crickets,
to the sound of the waves from the small lake kissing the shore, to the cool breeze mingling with the sweet warm summer air.
the morning crept along and we pulled each other
in and out
of the haze we created.
in the morning, it was cold again,
but i got only your jacket and a hushed
"don't tell".

Raindrops pelted the lush ferns
in a melody meant to soothe,
the babbling brook added
percussion to the crows overhead
as I crossed over the fallen log
& heard the bullfrogs
kissing wood spirits.

i.

at Beggar’s Pond with cousin I seen this bullfrog leap open mouthed from a mud bubble at a low bird and it took the bird to depths.  we wowed our way through reenactments but there was no betraying.  frog thrash nor bird thrash came to relieve the sight which had passed

had become
our post.    


ii.

men on break from the hauling of your stretchered father     men parked     yonder.

my long stick tied to yours and may our greatest concentration be with us     may it scoot

god  

over.


iii.

this ladder once leaned on the Tower of Babel.  black cat, these are the jokes.  

as crow
& thunder  
battle.


iv.

then again, a pair of babysitting sisters thought he was

plenty fine     like a little

*******
tornado.


v.

I look it up about bullfrogs.

Evergreen soldiers at the whim of Alraus
I've had a recurrent dream of the enlisted warriors
abandoning their post , occupying the fertile grassland
in a chess type move to gain control
Free of shade , of root-bound thirst , of choking
moss gathering unchallenged in overpopulated arbors
A celebration courtesy of the Robin Knights , the Chickadee troubadours ,
the Cardinal gentlemen at the Court of Queen Chestnut
Slash , sugar , loblolly and white oak
Persimmon , hickory , honey locust and dogwood
The myrrh of gardenia , magnolia , honeysuckle and tea rose
Earthen red clay , white sand , black loam and kaolin
Grasshopper cellist , cricket flautist , a chuckling crow with a
Spanish guitar
The toad trombones , a bluebird violin solo , a mockingbird reads
a touching poem that even sways the worker ants into a brief pause
The Old Forest becomes pasture and the grassland young woodland
The dove cue the night , the katydids croon to the moon ,
the bullfrogs 'pooka-dooka' and the lovers swoon* ...

Listen, Please.
Listen to the way the birds quietly fly away, the sound of their wings.
The way they soar above it all, Like nothing could touch them.
Like they exist in this alternate world, Where there's no fake plastic people with smiles plastered onto their faces.
I wish I could be one of them.
Just soaring above it all.
I wonder If I'd miss this.
The subtle sound of the traffic rushing by.
The way my sister giggles at everything and everybody.
The ever so slight pattering sounds of the rain on a windshield.
And how sometimes, in this trashed up world, You'll find a gem.
Somebody untouched, Somebody worth doing something for.
Someone who gives something meaning.
They aren't easy to find, these gems of people.
But they're out there.
Dancing in the rain, Singing in the shower.
Swimming in ice-cold lakes then laughing till it hurts.
Climbing trees and staying young forever.
You won't find them where you expect to.
They'll just show up, And make you feel something you didn't think you could feel.
The kind of people who actually listen to the world around them, And don't just pass by unaware.
Unaware of the way the tulips bloom in spring, All dewdroplets and petals.
Unaware of the fact that right now, There could be a million little souls being brought into this trashed up world.
Not even paying attention to slippery wood of a rained on deck, or the sound of the bullfrogs late at night.
I guess you wouldn't know these feelings, Because you probably live in a suburban, cemented over 'paradise' us creatures have come to love.
But I will tell you one thing-
Live a real life.
A life full of art and full of adventure.
A life where you gasp and laugh and cry sometimes.
A lively life. Where you're aware of yourself, And the wonder that is the world.
Because if you don't,
Life isn't really worth living at all.

Adam and Eve

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths, ...
--from Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning"

In Eden fair did Adam and Eve
live in perfect harmony.

"No plant or animal devoureth we,
only ripe fruit as falls from the tree."

By bright-green lily-pads in sphagnum bogs
the herons waded gracefully,
bullfrogs croaked their deep, clear calls;
bluebells, delicate yellow buttercups
were rampant; larks sang in the mulberries.

"No pain or hunger knew we there,
only the sameness of Eden fair."

Even the bounty, the beauty, the civility,
the rich perfection, stretching out like the wall
of the great oval garden, day after day,
year after year to eternity,
grew tiresome.

"No shame in our nakedness knew we ...
nor lust, nor desire, nor carnality."

It's the exogamous, the unfamiliar,
which stirs in us the deepest passion,
the basso continuo of mortality
which gives to desire its piquancy
--of which they knew nothing in deathless Eden.

"We wanted to look outside the wall.
We didn't mean from God's grace to fall."

Their lack of control, their disrespect
invited tragedy....
But to deny what one feels,
to deny what one is
is to risk even greater calamity....

"God expelled us from the Garden.
Now we'll know death and all that's human."

Discord ... despair.... Are you better off?
Coaxing grain from the cracked, parched earth?
Maybe you paid too much for your freedom?...
Maybe you wish you were back in the Garden?...

"There be good inside the Garden;
there be good outside....
There is no perfect Eden."

I've been staggering
for as long
as I can remember,
crawling through the mire
of heartbreak & troubles,
****** up on living,
intoxicated by the sun,
I binge on the moon,
get hung up on galaxies & stars.

I've driven fast cars & junkers,
hungered for ***,
received texts from
the heads of state
& poor white trash.
I get my fixes from bullfrogs
& leprechauns,
these shivers come
from delivered pizza,
I sweat bullets
watching flowers grow.
When I stare at ant piles
my mind goes blank,
get dt's
when I can't wish,
dream upon a star
or two or three.

If you really knew me,
you'd say I was a ******,
a ******* lover of life,
addicted to the world,
a bohemian flunkie,
rejected by the status quo,
but you don't know me,
so shush up.

My children will have a childhood.
I will make sure of it.
They will swim in ponds littered with Lilly pads
Dive down to muddy depths like fearless fish.
Sink tiny toes into slick black mud.
They will thrash strong tanned legs
Toward the gleaming surface above.
And **** deep breaths of country air.

They will slumber beneath the stars
To the sounds of bullfrogs and singing crickets
And the frenzy of flickering fairies of the night.
They will use glass wands of glitter
Just as a magician might
To hammer
All at once the warm dry earth
Sending grasshoppers springing
In startled unison-
Like magic
To escape the alien vibrations.

They will run barefoot through fields.
Drag behind them a ******* beast named
Ballou or Bear- or something like it.
He who leaps on four legs
And licks with pink tongue.

They will dance to songs
They do not understand.
And fashion forts from fallen brushwood.
They will swing from high up branches
Only climbers of trees can reach.

They will discover an island of trees
Some sweltering summer day
As they wade through waist high
Green grass that breathes along
With the erratic waving of the wind.
They will claim it as their own.
They will name it Sail Away or- something like it.
And ***** a flapping flag of dishtowel and twig.

They will pull from backpacks
Granola bars and beef jerky
And gulp water from their base camp.
And return only when it is too dark
And they are too weary
To embark on any more adventures.
My children will have a childhood.
They will have one because I did.