In dark and dreary Georgia swampland , in the midnight hour with the light of the Moon as your only friend .. Yellow and red eyes glow in the shadows , cottonmouths and gators slowly cross the waters ...
Bullfrogs sing in the Cattails , Horned Owls screech across the timberlands .. Bobcats scream , sound just like a woman late at night ,
they'll catch you off guard every time , make your beard turn white from fright ..Mosquitos are relentless , the humidity hell , blood ******* leeches , brown bats and rabid foxes .. Wild hogs work the bogs left and right , don't ever get caught by a razorback without a good plan or corner a '****' by accident , kick a Snapper thinking it's just a rock , or pick up a Rattlesnake looking for a walkin' stick .. Rumors of black panthers and 'shine wild men ', Confederate soldier ghost and quicksand .. Always lay a trail from where you started are you'll spend all night in haunted , Georgia swamp country ...

rooster-crow and the repetitive tap
of a hammer like the tick
of a clock in the distance
woke me and I followed what
was left of your voice like the tracks
of an animal to the edge of the copper
water. Though I knew there were
Cottonmouths thick as ropes, I waded
into the cool shadows and then up
a hill where trees grew, preordained, laid
out in perfect rows like headstones. When
I had reached that place where
we had left the past, and shed even
our skins for love, I saw them:
the blackberries surrounded
by briers. Supple and sparkling
as jewels. The same ones that we
had subsisted on, with bleeding
fingers, for one afternoon
of our lives. And though
I remembered all the fears
we shared like sackcloth
and ashes, and I knew
the danger of reaching
into the unknown, (it seemed
like there were serpents waiting
beneath every beautiful thing)
blindly grasping for the sweetness
that everyone longs for, and I too
have always feared those things
I cannot see,  I put my faith
in the innocence of nature. I tried
to believe in the benevolence
that exists if you go beyond
the fear, and so I found
them again: the blackberries,
the fruit not forbidden
to those who love, huge
and succulent, and so full
of grace, they were almost
too heavy to bear.

To lay my head upon the tawny cover of softwood pines once more
as I pry the manifest question of youthful travail and insecurity ,
to garner the earthen tier beside natures vested , rippling waters ..
Churning runnels lending delicate directions , whirlpool portrayals that countersink their matriarchal beginnings , only to gradually disappear ....
To wander the carpeted trail with arbitrary resolve , free of pious
intimidations .. Fixated with superb creativity  .. With the eyes of an eagle .. Determined . Pithiest .. Invincible ..
As heat obscures the blacktop ahead , the shade of home is but a dot in the humid distance , tar laced Georgia roads in the month of August are quite dangerous to young , bare feet ...
Sorghum fields , hog wire boundaries , darkening skies ..The unbounded Sun dragging each step , briar patches line the road shoulder , painful reminders of lonely boots foolishly left unkept ...
Fire ant mounds hide in tall grass , Cow Killers forage alone in Summer swelter , brown scorpions , cottonmouths and the list goes on virtually
forever during Dog Days , legends of wounds refusing to heal , double headed rattlers and rabid foxes , Longhorn bulls turning wild , growing bloodthirsty , hunting down unwary farm hands .. Men turned lunatic
from tainted moonshine , waiting at the wood line for clumsy boys and girls , well water made septic from lack of rain .. Bobcats running in packs for any food easily obtained , including boys that refused to listen
to mother , leaving their cowboy boots when warned not to do so ... This will be the last time I'm caught barefooted , all alone , left to my own wit and minds reserve , Mom and Dad can be sure of it !

She doesn’t even know I dance,
rhythm is a dancer,
my heart on my sleeve of armor,
a snake charmer moving faster and faster,

no boa constrictors,
more of a cobra that stays sober with business,
denying these pythons in nylon at all cost,

might be a viper,
might be the remedy for these toxic enemies,
the medicine to defend against the poisons in these city streets,
can’t call I’m all lit it’s a vibe thing and I’m busy vibrating,

go ahead and blame the boy in us for being so boisterous,
and being industrious enough to avoid the poisonous cottonmouths,
can’t trust these snakes these days more Chimera than Ciara,
as the World floods we just keep burning down the house,

in a constant state of affairs,
caught up in the nostalgia of Yesterday’s tomorrows,

we realize that this life we live is ours,
and that’s why we have everything except doubt,
meanwhile they’re still wondering,
who let the dogs out,

so we run in the sun,
swim in the ocean,
and make moments,
so we’ll hopefully be remembered,

even though I’ve got a terrible memory,
and you probably do too,
you know memory is a funny thing,
there are 2 sides to every truth,

well actually there’s 3,
but I don’t think anyone is counting,
because at this point in time,
we’re just happy we’re not drowning,

ship so heavy,
sea so stormy,
we fear we might trip,
and sink into unfounded glory,

so what’s the moral to this story,
what’s the lesson in this song,
I guess it’s to remember I still love you,
even though I know I was wrong,

so when they notice we’re gone,
and ask where we went,
tell them we were here in this moment,
and now we’re gone with the wind,

moving like the hottest God or Goddess,
call me Quetzalcoatl with vocal quotes filled,
within the pages placed into the Mind of our collective history,

let God be Our Witness,
we are Living History,
we are not only everywhere,
we are also everything,

everyone,
that’s ever read the written word,
will understand that this life we live,
is nothing more than a verb,

a fleeting moment of emotional memory,
everything all at once forget everything except I love you,
slash my wrist birth my kids,
no labels no lies, no way only truth,

and the truth is,

She doesn’t even know I dance.

∆ LaLux ∆

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Blackberry blossom and glorious Honeysuckle vine
Dark green Ferns and scented Loblolly Pines ...
Brush , briar thickets reducing visibility to arms reach
An Ole grey Opossum high atop a Cottonwood Tree ..
Thick floors of pine needles and knee high wild grasses
Yellow Locust , green grasshoppers flying in advance on stair -step hillsides leading into chilly Walnut Creek ...
Sandbars filled with quartz and mica , glistening between the 'Brick red clay cliffs' as far as you can see downstream ..
Painted turtles and Blue Herons , Cottonmouths and Black Racers ..
The music of life at every turn , every ripple of water , swaying River Birch ..

She's the width of an average driveway , about a five mile walk
Lined with sugar white sand and slick creek rock
Girdled in Water Oak roots and red clay embankments , a summer quick retreat , swift running with occasional pools no deeper than
a few feet
She's teeming with small fish , tadpoles , crayfish and
mud puppies , ruddy bank boulders and thick grassy shoulders
Lined in cattail , brown eyed susie's and monkey grass
Home to cottonmouths , alligator snappers , raccoons and
opossums , king racers , swamp rabbits and cottontails ,
whitetail deer , wild hogs and bobcats and a million childhood tall tales
A sister to the South River flowing into Lake Jackson , a mother
to abundant wildlife , a brother to an inquisitive youngster* ...

Lake folk don’t get us swamp people
spit it like an insult
say drain it
mock her swamp ***
write don’t let your data lake become it
a dump where it all flows in and
none of it flows out
it shouldn’t take a data scientist
to know that’s a salt sea *******
go drain a different metaphor
take an unstructured Saturday
let old black tea
rain run off to steep in Cyprus leaves
learn you to forget
learn you on its knees to
spec out a filter
think you could march across
this neon ****
without soggy socks
look away
sink in with spirits of sorely missed runaways
husbands to humble azaleas
pompous camellias
shepherds to growling gators
shy snappers
hissing cottonmouths
beneath chartreuse buzzard whirlpools
while a redheaded woodpecker encodes clus.ter.****.
while a blue jay screams thief! Thief!
for nobody but me too listening
tunnel through gray beards
machines lynched dead in live oaks
saunter from Four Holes to the lazy Edisto
meander to meet her shady cousins
an ACE up three sleeves
past ***** waving fiddler *****
freshen up the breakers
then tell me you do not find lovely
my Lowcountry’s languid spleen
;