"cottonmouths" poems - Hello Poetry

I can no longer wait for spring When I know the perfume of countless pale orange blossoms Will fill the air When heaven will hold white billowing clouds Over the trees and pastures now full of wildflowers Purple and yellow and red they grow Petals all tossed in the cool wind The lakeweed will gather at the shore Where the reeds sprout tall and thick Dragonflies circle the green water Viceroy butterfly like a leaf Now the cranes are joyous Warming their wings in the sun Walking in the shallows Searching for mosquitoes on the surface The Bluebird calls from the treeline The Cardinal calls from the air Deer roam through the rows of sugar cane Quiet in the breeze Orange groves full of angry cottonmouths Who coil in the sun Soft flowing river Mangrove snapper slips through the water Warm in the noon time sun Today we bury you Underneath the ground Everything you've seen and been All that you became Is lost in an instant During a final winter rain Now we give you up To become part of the earth Bringing only joy Leaving only love We cannot stand here in sorrow When the orange blossom starts to bud

0

Mar 7, 2012

Mar 7, 2012 at 10:37 AM UTC

jacob-1

Goodbye

I can no longer wait for spring When I know the perfume of countless pale orange blossoms Will fill the air When heaven will hold white billowing clouds Over the trees and pastures now full of wildflowers Purple and yellow and red they grow Petals all tossed in the cool wind The lakeweed will gather at the shore Where the reeds sprout tall and thick Dragonflies circle the green water Viceroy butterfly like a leaf Now the cranes are joyous Warming their wings in the sun Walking in the shallows Searching for mosquitoes on the surface The Bluebird calls from the treeline The Cardinal calls from the air Deer roam through the rows of sugar cane Quiet in the breeze Orange groves full of angry cottonmouths Who coil in the sun Soft flowing river Mangrove snapper slips through the water Warm in the noon time sun Today we bury you Underneath the ground Everything you've seen and been All that you became Is lost in an instant During a final winter rain Now we give you up To become part of the earth Bringing only joy Leaving only love We cannot stand here in sorrow When the orange blossom starts to bud

36

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 'Coon' 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 ...

0

Mar 2, 2016

Mar 2, 2016 at 10:35 PM UTC

randolph-l-wilson

The Georgia Lowland ...

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 'Coon' 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 ...

3

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.

0

Jul 7, 2014

Jul 7, 2014 at 2:09 PM UTC

adam-stanley

Our Hour in Eden

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.

41

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 !

0

Feb 20, 2016

Feb 20, 2016 at 9:44 PM UTC

randolph-l-wilson

Blacktop Travail - 1973

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 !

12

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 ..

0

Apr 1, 2016

Apr 1, 2016 at 7:45 PM UTC

randolph-l-wilson

River Dancer ..

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 ..

9

*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* ...

0

Feb 17, 2017

Feb 17, 2017 at 7:44 PM UTC

randolph-l-wilson

To Brother Camp ..

*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* ...

12