“Gimme that swamp song” by al colibrí
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets' daily poetry dispatch. Read "Gimme that swamp song" by al colibrí.
Gimme that swamp song
By al colibrí
Gimme that swamp song
Breeze, water-falling through tree leaves
Thick, musky, oak half-dead
Aching with lively
Quivering pond scum
The thump and rave of birdsong
Feral shades of green
Duckweed
Sultry obscenities
Unashamed and lusty
Bantered between them thirsty birds
That deep summer soul
A butterfly hustler flits on by
With a side eye
And flickering brows
Paper skin queen of the bayou
Crown-shy yet flirty
Trill
O de ley o de ley
Pop
Snatch
Thistle prick
Nature’s sound and slurry
Brackish pleasures
Sap-slick menageries
Roots and vines in orgy
Shagbark hickory
Virginia creeper
Sassafras Ecstasy
All of it moan-touched
Throaty
And in heat
Singing
While a tall white ash
Bare limbed and hungry
Hangs rootedly in beat
To the summer swamp swing
And the distant sounds of
Spreading wings and morning dove groans
Copyright © al colibrí
al colibri is a Taíno in diaspora, living and working on the lands of the peoples of Tkaronto. He is a transmedia artist who experiments with digital video, gaming, poetry and non-fiction, and focuses on themes of spiritualized nature, the tenderness of grief, ancestral kinetics, and playful deviance. When he isn’t critically fabulating, he moonlights as a professor at multiple universities in Canada and the US and is the father of two little love goblins (emphasis on the goblins).
Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!