The Bog Where I Was Born


Groggy lit up some cactus weed here once
beneath the outstretched arms of dying trees

The moon shone through like pieces of a puzzle
that we could never quite figure how to put together

We crackled like leaves in fire
underneath the weight of weed and singing frogs

And we scattered shot glasses
at the sides of dirt roads
and flooded homes

Gracie Gropolina had just broken it off with him
and the mournful sound of his drum
echoed through the skeletal arms of
the surrounding pines

And the Glacian wind held the smell
of roasted swamp rats
somewhere far away

We liked the looks of our faces
basked blue in full moon

Eventually high
we returned
two Grooks and a whiskey bottle between us.

II.

Old timers sit staring from their stoops

A future for the boys
ripens like a soft apple and falls away

Gracie passed out hours ago

and we
we whooped it up like only bog hoppin' boys can do.

III

The bog is waste

Our father’s worked here
grew old and died
and left our mothers with nothing

Desperation
broods over this swampy lands like a tomb

Its sprawl is endless
a hand clenched tight
it covers everything here
like a curse

It choked our fathers
It choked our grandfathers

My mother sat me down in it
when I was an infant

She cast her spells under the toenail moon
chanted words men were never meant to hear
and let me be

Nothing grows here.

The bog
the punch line of a cosmic joke


Groggy and I tried to get out once
We took what was had and
nearly rolled her to our deaths.



Penned by my hand on the 25th of Lupar, in the year 845 AF.