#swamp poems on Hello Poetry

David John Mowers Nov 2016

Ye evar 'eard oda' masta' inna swamps?
   E'a man hund wid 'is hands. . .take down a gator inna fide?
Yeah ah-boy, he a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.

Issue you'a hundin' widout a ricel? You's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.

Ain't nah trapping, nor'a line, no kedjewel, or time,
  -jussa' body inna swamp you's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.

Swimmin' inna ***-eh got skin made-o' armah,
  -inna mud, inna grasses, eh-no teachin' it in classes,
strike wid juss a knife inna hand he's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.

Issue you'a hundin' widout a ricel? You's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.

No ricel, no Glock, no light out innna night,
  -jussa' body inna swamp you's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.

If you's can **** widout a ricel you's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.

#song #lyrics #cajun #swamp #bornalligator #bonealligator #kjun

Genevieveish Jul 2018

Because He Never Had A Soul

The alligator in my swamp
The hornet in my nest
Whispered softly under the meteor showered sky,
I'm the only one who'll know.

Because he never had a soul,
He never could remember mine.

#louisiana #louisianalit #southernliterature #south #southern #wasp #hornet #alligator #sky #swamp

A Simillacrum May 2018

It's Just Light Reflecting Off Swamp Gasses

I thought everything would change

without any good input one day

I thought human responsibility

was ascending and making money

to support the tower steel and stone

to leave forgotten lives below

wishing and wanting that

same thing

Where the pyramid remains

built tip to base

have you heard that 3-d?
what a somber wail.
i found this old data plug
with an entire library of music still intact.
turns out there were
at a time
cartoon people who
looked like monkeys
and had a band
called
get this
The Monkeys.

What do you mean you think the file's corrupted?
Everything seems just fine to me.

#america #swamp #gas #future #sullen #hopelessness

cassie sky Apr 2018

Swamps are for Lovers

the swamp water glows
with golden licks of sunshine
reaching deep below

peepers softly speak
the language of mended hearts
so in love, so weak

they both feel the spark
but neither lets out a peep
soon it will be dark

The swamp across the street from my parents house has gotten me through a lot of painful times. It is so immensely beautiful that I may always feel a little more at peace in its presence, of old growth and life that has flourished in seemingly impossible conditions.

#haiku #swamp #love #peepers #rhyme

chipped tooth Aug 2017

The Moon's Daughter

There is a girl called Southern Ugly,
She often faces the mirror- Believing
that the reflection must be oneself.

But a woman’s essence
Lives in the light, not in our eyes.
Mother Mary, dressed in blue-

Your daughter sees her face, knowing
That she is not first to be saved for Heaven.
We come second to God

(Though Man did not refuse the apple).
Mother said, “You are a southern belle,
Just baptized in the bayou.

****** in the water,
The depths of the swamp do not foster
Power nor Fortune

But your birth, the prayer of the Moon.
And like a cypress knee
That has not yet broken the surface,

You’re hidden in wisdom unknown."

#adolescence #mary #cajun #southern #south #louisiana #swamp #bayou #water #nature

Juniper Zed Jul 2017

Cicada Bridge

Dimly glow the fireflies
In the densely wooded grove
The creek beside the promenade
Sounds like the whispers of the cove

In its solitary peace
The carp repress confessions
In the quiet emerald water
Live sorrows and obsessions

And when the cicadas buzz
They are like a music box
Young love is their handle and springs
They are the muse the world mocks

The melody of passion
Bleeds like the sap of the trees
On lukewarm nights of dancing stars
Love enters the world as breeze

A pair of lovers awaits
To live together at last
And as the date comes closer here
The future is not colorfast

Life's hourglass so expires
And there is not one who grieves
His final rest is too costly
So now he floats with the leaves

There's no wedding to foresee
Thus the bridge became of use
Her toes hang off the bridge again
But this time she holds a noose

Oh the irony of love
It's as the cicadas sang
"Be joyful now in summer's heat,
By our love, we all will hang."

The silly girl hanged herself
And she hung there not alone
Cicadas sang her melody
As her neck skin removed from her bone

And so she hung there quite still
Until her corpse decomposed
Her tale was not quite as haunting
As the music the cicadas composed

#cicada #buzz #imagery #swamp #carp #trees #grove #love #wedding #heartbreak

chipped tooth Jul 2017

From Which You Came

Nature, too, is self-consuming.
Even the grandest oak
of all southern Louisiana
will be uprooted in a hurricane.
The moss that grazes the water
with gentle finger tips
from those weary branches
will be swallowed by the water.
An old man's life spent in Houma
is reflected in the river currents;
his house built on stilts
across from the cemetery
where is wife is buried
next to her eldest son.
It meets the Mississippi
not surrendering,
returning

#louisiana #hurricane #water #swamp #bayou #death #river #nature #mississippi

chipped tooth Jul 2017

Trespassing

Tiny ankles hang down from a wooden bridge over the bayou-
and my friend and I stare at the black water
and point at all the furniture legs jetting out of the blackness
as if they were Cyprus knees—
and he says to me  “Someone said there’s at least a hundred bodies in there”
and without hesitation or a moment of silence
for the uncertain yet forgotten Dead
I say, “Bodies float, so we would see them if that were true”
and he replied,  after a brief moment of thought,
“Maybe they’re tied to all the couches or stuffed in the refrigerators”
and I couldn’t believe how many house hold appliances
have been repurposed to host all these passed souls
in the bowels of the swamp
and with a swing of my leg, too swift—
my left shoe dropped  and hovered on the water
where lily pads should have been

#death #childhood #bayou #louisiana #texas #swamp #nature #water #soul