"mangrove" poems
Down in the bayou where the mangroves grow
There's talk of black voodoo, like Marie Leveau
The Swamp Witch, is legend, she has magic so black
That those who have seen her, have never come back
There;s tales of the noises that come from the dark
Of werewolves and zombies as rough as the bark
The mangroves are sentinels, to where the magic resides
Where even a longboat has no room to glide
Bodies go missing from the graveyards most nights
And there's always a fog shading the fireflies lights
The Swamp Witch is ruler and Queen of this world
Where souls are all taken and spines can be curled
They say that she came here from Canadian lands
She was a metis they say, from the Western Tar Sands
A mystic by nature, a dark witch by blood
She lives deep in the swamp, protected by gators and mud
The gators respect her, they do as she bids
They keep watch on the waters, they're her reptillian kids
She keeps zombies as gendarmes, collecting bodies to turn
Just how black is her magic, no one can discern
The Swamp Witch is legend, she is as old as all time
The air in the bayou is as thick as the slime
The cajuns say voodoo is the core of her heart
They avoid fishing where the mangrove trees start
The Swamp Witch, a legend ? or is she truly the Queen
She's the Louisiana Witch, no one survives once she's seen.....
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 11:33 PM UTC
The first new star flashed waves of blue tonight ,
securing my belief in the afterlife
A grove of ferns lit my imagination
For I became a shipwrecked captain -
that stumbled upon an island nation
Exploring the deep jungle without machete ,
potable water nor compass
Knee deep in mangrove forest
Tropical winds whispered and moaned
A lean-to of fronds became my maritime home
In the presence of a million stars
An army of sand ***** paraded before -
their newfound master from near and afar
Crashing waves lulled a poor sailor to rest
The whispers of Poseidon
A dream about a lookout in the crows nest
Counting orbs in the tail of the Milky Way-
with visions of mermaids , ghost ships and rogue waves
Aug 1, 2018
Aug 1, 2018 at 9:05 PM UTC
It was a Masquerade, she said: a place we could go to hide. I wasn't in fright of her. I had it all under control. She took me by the hand, softly, that cold summer morning. The confusion that surrounded us allowed us to see more clearly. We were both wearing horse masks, and she whinnied at me so eagerly. The apple tasted bitter, but when I licked her lips, I felt the sugary sweetness of saliva mixed with cake crumbs and wine. We flirted. We sang together. I saw her naked, twice. When she took off her clothes and threw her tights around my head, I couldn't see the flesh she flaunted to the rest of the room. She licked my chin, all the way up to the tip of my mask, lifting it from my skull with her tongue. When her song was sung, I wallowed in pity and doubt. Her father chased me from the balcony. I climbed faster than he and escaped with my life, barely. The walk through the mangrove was dusty, and spiders kept climbing down my back, spinning their threads along my spine. I contemplated my mirage in the rippling waters before taking the final steps into my doorway. Looking up, greeted by elephants, tigers, peacocks and pigs. They strangled me with their elixirs, and we danced with the moon until our legs abandoned us.
Nov 30, 2014
Nov 30, 2014 at 11:38 PM UTC
The plump moon lights up my room.
My mind is now a flat graph
no desire no lust no dream
the cold winds from the rumbling sea
make no dent on me
I look at my palms
and see the cracked floor
gnarled roots of mangrove on the wall
blend seamlessly with all I have
like once I had her in this room
love together
taking wingless flight to the moon
but now I more like sitting here
prospecting no words to rhyme
not angered at the blankness
for in this vacuous moonlight
I wait without a hope of gain
without a despair of loss
unconstrained for time
contoured by fireflies
alone
recounting a new beginning
from the end.
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 11:00 AM UTC
bayou baby
She comes from the swamplands
Back in the mangrove
Back where the stories say
Magic runs wild
The devil plays host
And all who visit must stay
Witches and Zombies
Together by night
Gators and Snakes there as well
The river, it changes
Cut you off in a flash
And then you end up in hell
Hair as black as Kentucky Coal
And eyes green as the sea
She's the witch queen of the swamp to most
But, she's a Bayou Baby to me
Born out of the magic's world
Where the mystic world runs free
She's the witch queen of the swamp to most
But, she's a Bayou Baby to me
She comes to town
to get supplies
That's where I saw her first
I followed close
Back to the swamp
And saw her do her worst
A simple boat
A single lamp
An oarsmen, long, long dead
A different route
Through water black
To a place where most folks dread
Hair as black as Kentucky Coal
And eyes green as the sea
She's the witch queen of the swamp to most
But, she's a Bayou Baby to me
Born out of the magic's world
Where the mystic world runs free
She's the witch queen of the swamp to most
But, she's a Bayou Baby to me
She saw me
And I looked back
She knew that I would follow
She slowed down
Her travel home
And she trapped me in the hollow
I never told
Another soul
Of who I go to see
I travel out
At night alone
My Bayou Baby waits for me
Hair as black as Kentucky Coal
And eyes green as the sea
She's the witch queen of the swamp to most
But, she's a Bayou Baby to me
Born out of the magic's world
Where the mystic world runs free
She's the witch queen of the swamp to most
But, she's a Bayou Baby to me
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 9:31 PM UTC
Deep in the creek
where speckled light kisses the saline shore
and mud hole bubbles leave crab trails
I knock upon her door.
She opens with a whisper on her skin
licks my **** with her southern tongue
winds rise the dusts within
the mangrove falls quiet to her moaning song.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 10:38 AM UTC
I saw him at work;
When he would visit the mangal
With a ***** over his shoulder.
He rolled up his pant legs and walked
Through the tidal wash. Once he had picked a tree,
He hacked for three days to cut
The mud and the mangrove
Free from the surrounding forest.
He piloted his self-made island into the lagoon.
Shortly, he became mangrove crazy,
A disease he called Rhizophoria
In the notebook he had taken along.
With mud lobsters and tree for his only company,
Of course he had mangrove on the brain.
His life became an ellipsis—
The two centers were the tree and himself.
From tubular mangrove branches, propagules fattened,
And seeds nested inside them;
He would scribble notes with delirium as they fell
Plumply into the lagoon
And were pulled away by the warm current.
Each time the tree condensed its salt
Into a sacrificial leaf,
He would sadly add a tick
To the tally of the dead he kept in his book.
He once wrote:
‘The salt is burning my eyes.’
Late afternoons, with beer in our hands,
We would watch him from the beach,
Five hundred yards away.
Eventually, his mangrove island drifted ashore—
He lay by the suberic roots
With a crust of salt along his cheek.
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 9:45 PM UTC
~~Overwhelmed by the raw talent and emotion with which my students think and feel and write. Thank you, A.N.--Chuukese woman~~
Early in the morning
When the dark cloud covers the light
And hides my brother from seeing the light
I woke up along shocking news
That glazed my face with sadness
Brought tears to my eyes
I heard an awful voice
Coming from the mangroves
Just right after my brother
Hung himself with a thin rope
The voice said that
He had to find a hat
Before Uncle Priston
Forced him to drink the poison
I smell his perfume
When I start to feel the pain
In my heart
I feel the cold air
When he appears in my dreams
And he touches me with his cold hands
Apologizes to me
We cry to each other
Among the mangrove trees
Hugging each other
Talking about the truth
I lost his warm hands
And his warm heart
That blocked the cold air
From entering our house
His love and his memory will not be forgotten
But I hide it in a secret place
Because his love was exactly like a fire
That makes the people feel warm
As they come closer
by A.N.
representing Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 4:56 PM UTC
Beautiful Bangladesh naturally is pretty cute
on second thought is a masterstroke.
You gotta see it to believe how stunning it looks
as if the sunrise rendered a beauty spot
gladly put it on the morning rose!
Pop into a country of mass people
you could be walking down the singing birds
hanging low nearby our princely open doors.
Every one of us knows in the heart
we are sitting on a land of pure gold!
Should you bask in at the crack of dawn
as the crackling light of heaven stumbles upon
follow the first light that gives you your cue!
Besides the world's ********* Aladdin's
three wishes came true: the longest beach
the biggest tea gardens and mangrove forest,
in Cox's Bazar, Sylhet and Sundarbans.
Take your peep eye on in every direction
ah, moments await you on both sides of the pool!
Vividly mesmerising the Bengal of Gold,
a narrative in words can't always be told.
Sometimes it's said with whispers of old
in the shade of bamboo when that flute is heard
expect it to be carried to you by the frost-kissed air!
Hang onto your cameras even though
you walked passed the twilight in scenic Bandarban
seen the sunset in Kuakata is de ja vu ambling down this nook
you might feel walking one step down beneath the Moon!
Jan 9, 2020
Jan 9, 2020 at 5:07 PM UTC
In foreign land of towering pines
And hammocks, mangrove-torn
A dark-filled night reluctantly
Bequeaths a pale dawn
Upon one battered cypress perched,
Amidst the morning haze,
Bright eyes stare out from part-cocked head
With piscicultural gaze.
Intently focussed on the brook,
That glides beneath the tree
Alive to every shadow’s sound
Yet never truly free.
For choicelessly these eyes are drawn,
As waters break below
And like a flash a head snaps back
And rippled muscles flow.
Within the slightest moment’s breath,
Two mighty wings released,
Two claws full-stretched, two legs reach out
The sinews, strained, unleashed.
The beaten air the only sound,
As time itself stands still
And, tracer-like, on charted course
The osprey meets its ****
With consummate and practiced ease
The painless end begins
The single deadly blow is dealt
As sharpened claws sink in.
Then up away into the dawn
And time resumes its course
Two final beats – then disappeared
Is this magnetic force.
The cypress perch and well-filled brook
As silent witness stay
And as they settle – calm again
The sun declares the day.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 8:18 PM UTC
Crashing waves against the crunch of sand
Touches my feet
Sinking into the softness beneath me
As the water stains my toes blue
And paints goosebumps
Paints chills
Across my legs
Up to my stomach
Full of the same crashing waves
Those which curl
And spin in whirlpools
Up to my chest
Into my lungs full of seasalt
And the bitterness of the morning sun
Down every branching vein
That reminds me of mangrove roots
Yet pale and blue
So small and delicate
It reaches my own shaking fingers
And to the rosiness of my cheeks
All I hear is the soft ringing of windchimes in my ears
And the splash that dissipates into nothing but tiny droplets
Maybe that’s what keeps me awake at night.
May 24, 2021
May 24, 2021 at 8:22 AM UTC
On the mangrove bank of the tidal river
lie embedded the mollusks,
they appear mournfully motionless,
deceiving you to believe
they’re too passive to be alive,
are just displays of dead shells
in their muddy graveyard,
though the truth is
they are mystic monks
silently enduring their estuarine transience,
bidding in meditation the time
the return tides carry them to their marine abode.
Aug 16, 2013
Aug 16, 2013 at 2:23 AM UTC
I would die to say here, truthfully,
splaying my arms round as the sky,
this, this! is how it is possible to live
and not sink under a faint surface,
and not run, windfaced, against a distance,
and not lay down, weary as nothing.
This is how it is possible for us
to look without shaking skin or heads
or blenching eyes, writhing like mangrove
limbs in this incomprehensible slough.
To live as discovery of life and still not know
if ever we were born, or when, if ever, we’ll have
died.
But to you, I cannot say this, truthfully.
My person is not truthful. It has a voice
you hear through air in the daytime, I am
not truthful to you. Else I would be
fringes of all time
stretched. You cannot see me, truthfully.
I am ground movement, just under, welling
untouchable imperative unattainable.
Are you bound by the point to create
your own destruction, as I? Then proclaim it
yourself, truthfully, waving your fresh
roots out to me, soil juiced and ripely plucked.
I will try to remember crossing the plains from
dawn till dusk, before I made the world fragile.
If I do, I will dissolve, and will come out your
breath, speaking truthfully. But will you remember
too? So that, disappeared, I may find you?
I would not have to die, then, truthfully.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 6:37 PM UTC
The golden tinge of sun pierced the cloud
But the mangrove held onto its dark cloak
She hid somewhere between the light and shadow
When from one irresistible daze I awoke.
Unbeknownst flamed up the rocks salt white
Dry since the waves receded beyond the *******
A cold loneliness crept up in the spell broken light
As if eons had passed without the sight of her.
Then one seagull’s spriteful fish dream shriek
Motioned me up from the vacuous stupor
Buzzed each sand grain all years’ unborn speak
Was to be seized this moment and tell her.
The wind having carried the voice of her name
Spread it across the mangrove and far
From the receding waves rose a rising flame
When in her hug beneath an acacia I found her.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 3:21 AM UTC
As he scanned the far horizon of the mangrove beach
He imagined her silhouette by the sea of Norwich
A home he had left long to be so remotely far
On this alien shore with her face a distant star!
The sea winds kissed his skin in a bid to make amend
For his walks in the blazing sun weariness of dayend
He felt a peace in his ruffled mind craving for a rest
Amid the waves’ serenade dreaming a lulling nest!
What if he made his home on this ****** desolate beach
Walked the sands thought-romancing the woman of Norwich
Swam wild in the saline sea then lie in the mangrove’s shade
With no statistics to worry about only love’s buzz in his head!
Not going back to the asphalt path he would build here a hut
Laze dream lying in the shadows of wild and green coconut
In the starry evenings when the sea would hold her bewitched
He would walk the trails of scent left by the woman of Norwich!
This man went with the mission of building on the sea a port
But the mangrove gave him a reason to make there a love resort
No relic survives now the waves having carried beyond reach
All except the lingering scent of his love for the woman of Norwich!
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 4:24 AM UTC
The speckled puffer fish was a greedy scavenger
a greedy thing with no agenda but to grab the hook
I used to hate to touch them.Big black eyes staring
Huge gopher teeth bare and sharp.
I was Huck Fin Carribean
Bare foot and rural as heck
Dirt ring around my neck
The dusty roads
humid.
The sweltering heat and the river would meet us
in the mangrove Forrest as we walked the
Picado road to river's edge.
A cranky dory sat tied of
for our convenience with a paddle or two.
We pushed of and fought the tide
to get us safe to the other side.
Aunt Doris would stand with'
arm akimbo a cigarette burning
between index and middle
a tiny smile stayed put.
The Muttruce , as we named it
Flourished because no one would eat it
so the river teemed with catfish and puffy.
we did not eat catfish either some cultural bias. Lucky cat
but that bias died when the market for him found Belize.
Scary little blacked eyed buck toothed *******
Dont know if they are on someones menu now.
They seemed a bit scarce last time i fished.
high priced export on the orient express I guess.
Price of popularity is no privacy
eaten to extinction.
Head up , eyes open
mouth closed.
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 10:57 PM UTC
Under misted august sky
where the fishnet boats dot the Matla River
I stand drunken on the wild mangrove.
This abandoned out of world noon
when the river breeze whispers
you are deathless
my blood paints in my eyes her face.
Only the estuarine heron
wings smelling of sun and fish
is my timeless witness!
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 11:30 AM UTC
I'm having a dozen dreams a night; fluid and lucid.
I prefer this imagination and fantasy in my bed.
It's a lot of fun, also terrifying,
All in black and red...
Deep diving indoor pools with oil rigs and sea monsters.
I butterfly and sidestroke across the unfathomable chlorine waters.
Gliding downstream through swampy, vine-roped forests.
I end up in mangrove lakes, a canopy of bright glowing mushrooms.
Zombie hordes making me hide in closets at my parent's house.
They never break down the door, I don't understand why they carouse.
Being in a place without time, space, colors, physics or floors,
Talking to people I barely know, with no names or faces. Am I bored?
Sitting in my underwear on a dock, waiting for the bus
The others don't even seen me, but the cute girl next to me does.
I learn to fly, jump off a roof, start falling, then forget.
I twitch in my covers from a concrete slab, comical to wake up dead.
Sometimes I just sit in a cave with a reflection of myself
Talking to my ego; arguing and reasoning with nobody else.
Every time I close my eyes and lay my head,
I feel like a mad-hatter, locked in wonderland.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 2:28 PM UTC
One mile down the drunken river
I lost my mind in her midday yellow haze.
Residues of the river-wind-kiss lingered saline on my face,
Wild sun on the wild river scathed my skin copper,
And I glided upstream in blurred eye sweat
Losing and finding the river’s mangrove shore.
My mind in delirious mess wondered
What it was that wined the river, made her a swirling detachment,
Bearing all with the endurance of a drunkard
But embracing nothing like an all foregoing monk.
I dreamed adrift one more mile and then another
Till I was windswept and wined like the drunken river.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 3:27 AM UTC
when torn clouds bared blue holes
the river brimmed with ecstasy.
it had rained the whole day
and she was bursting in seams
to tell her side of the story
from the many
upon her shore's mangrove.
how the tiger guards her treasures,
prawns and ***** and honeys and woods,
pounces from the saline thickness of the mist
when dream of life is heavy on the gatherer
and smell of death far gone forgotten
rips the flesh cracks the skull open
flows the blood as silent night
carries the trophy for a bony rest
till devoured by her floodwater.
the river knows it too well
the tiger is her lover and loyal sentinel.
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 1:21 PM UTC
Where the river abandons herself to the creek
and the mudbank is cratered with crabclaws
waits the old man.
He doesn't know his years
but his ears are a sonic gift
catching the tonal variations of tides
seemingly for eons
evolving with the mangrove map
into a flawless tracker
of how far the moon would recline
for ***** to be holed out
and what shoreline the water would touch
before the shrimps starlight driven
make a beeline for the net.
I encountered him once
in the absurdity of a time
when I was high
and he lowly crouching
was making art by the creek.
Who was the poet
I could never tell.
Jun 9, 2017
Jun 9, 2017 at 6:28 AM UTC
I see your face in everything
-- the reflection of a dripping wet window,
the whispering leaves on a mangrove tree
in the creases of my rustled bedsheets --
I see you in everything I cannot avoid.
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 8:02 PM UTC
Met a wife and her husband at a bus stop in Atlanta.
Said
"We're going down to Miami to see our brother. Hubby's gonna go deep sea fishing next to all the mangrove roots."
Just then, the double decker came and swooped them up, took off into the sky beating its mighty $1 dollar ticket wings.
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 11:23 AM UTC
With the veins of my grief
the day dies a fallen leaf
night’s shadows in me confide
the boat is coming from the other side
chirping crickets on darkness feed
thickens smell of mangrove reed
waves rolling in the saline stream
paint a boat in slumbered dream.
Sep 22, 2015
Sep 22, 2015 at 12:35 PM UTC
poems flow like rivers in tide
when she’s by your side
and reclines a November afternoon
on the back of the crescent moon!
you tell her stories only for her made
as the birds their weary wings spread
when her face is west borrowed red
and you grab the last flickers before they fade!
you don’t talk of love but companionship
as night wears on and comes not sleep
the mangrove smells of long dead shells
with returning tide the river swells!
beside you walks a woman in your mist of tears
a face you hadn’t seen over all these years
she’s the woman you wonder if you ever knew
a companion a lover one dream forever new!
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 3:02 AM UTC