"sawgrass" poems
In Battalion,
Misery is served in a thousand ways.
Misery is served in buckets of rain
and hours of wind.
Unyielding, soul-sucking cold and wet.
Porous jungle boots that invite the frigid water in and soften your feet for a relentless 30 mile march.
Misery is served in a stifling aircraft flying Nap of the Earth.
A nauseating rollercoaster ride that never fails to elicit
chain reaction vomiting from the paratroopers rigged to jump.
Misery is served at pool PT
When your arms and legs feel like lead
and drowning is a better alternative
than the aquatic torture that you’re enduring.
Misery is served during blistering Company runs
led by the Commander
who was a college decathlete.
Runs where the strongest of us
pulled aside, emptied our stomachs,
and rejoined the formation.
Misery is served by no warning alerts
separating families and lovers
for indefinite periods,
sometimes forever.
Misery is served by the Spec 4 Mafia
Unleashing Hell on new Rangers
testing their threshold for ****
Misery is served by road marches, prickly heat,
Black Palm, and sawgrass. It’s served by desert heat,
Arctic cold, and the stench of the world’s worst places.
Misery is served by the loss of brothers in war and training,
gone too soon to join the Great Ranger in the Sky.
Through it all, misery hardened my body and strengthened my soul.
It made me a warrior and ushered me into a Brotherhood that will be with me until we all sit at the great table in Valhalla.
So on this Veteran’s Day
Embrace the ****
Endure the pain
Invite the Misery
For that’s what makes us
Men amongst Men
Rangers Lead The Way.
Nov 6, 2015
Nov 6, 2015 at 10:34 AM UTC
It was at the cottage, by the marsh,
Where the husband slipped through the threshold.
The Bass boots left marks of silt and clay on the worn wooden floor.
He dropped the shovel on the floor as well.
And globs of mud, sawgrass and marsh water seeped in the cracks, forever to stay there,
As a silent reminder.
He sat down at the dinner table, a table for two,
With only one chair.
The coo-coo clock chimed above his head,
It was dinner time, where was dinner?
His thick gruff hands made fists and smashed the table top,
Breaking the maple top in two, which now made it a table for one.
He just needs sleep, his temper was getting to him.
As the husband climb up the stairs to the spacious bed,
And laid his head upon the pillow, he fell asleep.
But if you follow the muddy tracks down the stairs, through the kitchen, out the door, into the rain,
to the marsh, you will see a pile of mud that looks misplaced.
The sludge will begin to shift and slide away to reveal a hauntingly beautiful women.
She will rise, and walk through the marsh, in the rain, to the door, through the kitchen and up the stairs to see her husband in a fitful sleep.
And as any good wife would do,
She'll kiss him and lay next to him to ease whatever could be on his mind at this hour.
Jan 9, 2013
Jan 9, 2013 at 8:22 PM UTC
Bone-white moon.
Lacrimosa caught
in the mechanisms.
Can you see me?
Of course not.
I blend in
with the sawgrass
and the catacombs.
With beach glass
and stones the color
of rust. I am a
microcosm.
Can you hear me?
My tragedy is in
the way I keep quiet.
Silence like ashes.
I am ethereal now.
This is my requiem.
Send my regards
to Mykonos.
Burn the screaming harp.
I am subterranean now.
Someday it will all turn
to gold.
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 1:27 AM UTC
The hounds of fear nip at winter heels,
whelping doubt and baying at the moon.
Cocoon prayers whispered across the fields
of becoming; this dark of the light is
contextually contrasted. i am little and
young against the ages, something loose
and rattling in the box of reality and
afraid, fleeing the dogs of war.
i write post-it note prophecies and
crumple them, building a nest in
the trees, a mother's womb nearer the sky,
for when the sun comes it comes
first to the birds on high.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 10:49 AM UTC
I returned from three days of golf
At Lake Orion, with a philosophical man.
A PhD talked the ear off me,
And spoke so deeply on the meanings
Of life as we approached the green.
Across the fence in a sawgrass meadow
I saw a doe grazing in spite of us.
I don't remember much of his diatribe
But the ball and the doe stuck.
He continued on the fallacy of memory,
Asking me to name the cities of the Olympics:
Mexico, Rome, Beijing, Montreal,
I think I was able to name them all;
But the ****** pup swimming
Beneath the walkway
Dragging a branch underwater
Cleared the air,
Like a thump on my chest,
Took my breath away,
And stopped my ear.
May 29, 2015
May 29, 2015 at 10:10 AM UTC
Something prehistoric does arise
approaching Mother Gator's birthing mound.
Reptilian brain, primordial pair of eyes
see naught but food or danger looking 'round
at local parents, tourists, kids, and I
as we stare back in awe. We hear the sound
of striped-back alligator babies' cries,
seeking out the warmth of higher ground.
We move to see them better. Her cold stare
and shift in murky water lets us know
that not by grace of boardwalk are we there,
but her ancestral patience. As I go,
I turn once more to see her lying where
she has been since a million years ago.
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 8:28 PM UTC
Harvest Moon effigy , ivory in subtle contrast to pearls tranquility along windswept confident shorelines , tousled charcoal locks wrapped in silken bonds , violet attire that relays the waters reflection from a million stars ..
Sable Palm within the kindred of Oat and Sawgrass , warm Gulf
nightfall , diamond waves explore the pier , where lovers embrace ,
where romance directs the eve .. Amber lit vessels grace her southern horizon , Mexican breezes brush raven hair beneath the canopy of night ..
Breakers tinge the ocean West , ebony Aphrodite features are
aglow tonight . Unwavering and forever recalled ..
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 9:21 PM UTC
It took fog to realize
There is no use in growing
Things that grow will always be cut down
Dew on the grass, peppered by spider webs
Hills full of red angry fire ants
It took fog to remember
That I could always go back home
That I could skip the canal
And pick an orange straight from the tree
Peeling it with a rusted pocket knife
Would you sit in the grass with me?
The stick of the juice between your fingers
It took fog to show me
That I can still walk down the rows of sugar cane
After playing hide and seek
That I can still **** snakes
And get cut by the sawgrass
It took fog to remind me
That the mangroves were
Full of mosquitoes and fish
And the yellow sun
Was only a round disk
Through the fog
Feb 18, 2012
Feb 18, 2012 at 7:57 AM UTC
I returned to the place
where I use to escape
from the pedestrian affairs
of life in suburbia.
Many nights spent
collapsed on the pavement
swapping humdrum stories
of teenage angst.
It was the end of a road
just north of town
with nothing but swampland
in two directions.
Far enough away
from the sprawl of the city
to understand quiet
without getting lost.
An abundance of stars
made us feel insignificant
and the freedom of isolation
gave us confidence and strength.
It was balanced and beautiful
like we were, back then,
just the right amount
of elation and confusion.
So then it was silly, I guess
for me to expect
that a place like that
would still be the same.
It's a strip mall now,
sleek and amalgamated
and the unkempt sawgrass
replaced with pigmented mulch.
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 12:48 AM UTC
her presence crescendoed
a wind strumming sawgrass.
rustling into symphony
a hot summer melody.
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 4:34 PM UTC
*Waiting for the ransom of daybreak
For Oak boughs in care of Wisterias child ,
for warm ploughland breath seeking the chilled morning address ,
Sunbeams held in gray cover , windmere hillsides
in earthly redress
Lorn , incognito Cottonwoods hosting the Mourning Dove
rituals , Sapphire flowers mingle in wetted Thistle ,
Crescendo showers telltale an oxbow brook with
clear quartz reflections , bathing the Sawgrass banks
Crimson , Nutmeg , Sassafras scent surprise , Wild onion teasing
the Dawn palate , dark earth fragrance in colorful green disguise
Gravel road , broom sage borders beneath Hickory canopies ,
leading to home*
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 6:28 PM UTC
velvet stains, sawgrass breath of junebugs over again
Apr 19, 2012
Apr 19, 2012 at 12:02 PM UTC
*Flavors of blackberry ,
of muscadine and persimmon ,
of brine collecting at the trunk of
tall oaks
Flesh salted in wild abandon
Lovers feasting upon air ,
upon one another along the
marsh , the shrieks of conclusion
borne of March
Naked receiver , child of April
Call o'er cattail , sawgrass and -
Savannah dancer* ..
Apr 23, 2017
Apr 23, 2017 at 7:59 PM UTC
Where is the soldier
who floundered in his backyard?
Amidst the windswept sawgrass,
(Which, by the way,
Cut so hard against his skin)
He felt the sensitivity of his own lost soul,
So on the surface,
that it was hurt by its own feeling.
He, who dipped and swayed,
And felt angry, perverted, and *****
lonely, now,
He lets his mind wander,
When he's never done that before.
Now he is away,
Careening through space, time,
and *****
Peicing together destruction,
and how much humanity and evil,
Well up from us
as a reaction to death,
How so frail we are,
How ***** releases a man.
Where the horizon finally finds itself, he has been lifted,
Too heaven,
Among God and Gods and monkeys
and clouds.
Too where gunsmoke rises eternally,
With the heartbeat of man,
A slow, hollow drumming,
emptiest,
The emptiest.
In the brotherhood of the melting sunset,
Where molten horizon simmers overtop the edges of the pines,
And the whole world is finally pure chaos,
sadness and beauty.
He reaches the bottom of his dreams,
and still wandering,
Goes back into the house,
To ********** so much and hard that it hurts,
To sleep.
Jul 25, 2014
Jul 25, 2014 at 9:28 PM UTC
you want to fall
crash into my landscapes
touch my sawgrass
and bite my quivering knees
it seems to me I have fell into hopeless romance
sided with pain and anticipation
anxiouness and sensuality
I feel how you graze my goosbumps
and they look at me with envy
I give them my humble smile
but I am almost never humble with you
you rip me apart
you tear at me with your claws
you bleed me dry
and Im flourished with all my thoughts
of you
Dec 6, 2010
Dec 6, 2010 at 12:19 PM UTC
Hysterical Robins coerce the midday sunshine ,
What bedevilment and gaiety fosters in Springtime
Teeming kingdoms under leaf cover , mistletoe , Angel hair ,
powder filled breaths of mystical warm air ..
Mischievous Pucks running amuck , locking eyes with
a Centaur 'neath the tall Pine , a shy Sprite up high , blowing good wishes unto you and I ... A whimsical Raccoon giving a good belly laugh , a tickled turtle cat-napping in the sawgrass ..Old Mister Maple telling tall tales of Lemonade oceans , powdered sugar beaches and Gingerbread whales .
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 12:41 PM UTC
My mind is a swamp.
Sometimes there is daylight. The Sun illuminates the murky green water. The color glows like a neon ember. An almost steam lifts off the bog, as if the water is ablaze. You may see all of nature then and admire each blade of sawgrass.
And then there are nights. Moonlight bathing insects who scream far in the distance but seemingly all around you. Some tiny being you can’t see plunges into the water with a plop.
The eyes of a crocodile peaks above the waterline. Is it looking at you? Fear, you can’t tell. The pungent smells are animalistic. You don’t belong here.
Or do you? Only another native of the swampland could stay here.
You wade into the dark waters. Unsure how deep it goes. What creatures slither beneath.
To see if you’ll float among the cattails. Lily pads cover your face and moss decorates your body. You’ll float here forever.
Or sink, to lie at the bottom in permanence. A mummified vessel where algae and minnows call home.
Oct 6, 2024
Oct 6, 2024 at 1:25 AM UTC