Backwater Poems | Examples

Backwater Junction

Backwater junction in a backwoods town
Rusty and creepier than a carnival clown
Timber rattlesnakes hide their slanted eyes
No one visits this woodpile, no big surprise

PURE NORMALITY

         

EVERYTHING IS NORMAL

The backwater
dreams is catching the winds
to become a whirlwind again...

The past daydreams
of recovering time
to live the present...

Rest
revels in silence
to replenish energy...

the night shines, the stars
with the sleeping rays of the sun
borrowed for free...

Pain heals,
when the scars dry
and become just memories...

Deciduous discomforts

I started chopping, one by one
the non gratae parts of my Temple,
while unbeknownst to me
pebbles were already spreading whispers
in all directions.
Shh..don’t speak so loud 
You might as well keep quiet
Angst is already on her beaten path to the heart. 
A path guarded by flowerless magnolia trees
on one side..
and mud cypress trees
on the other side, the one towards the backwater.
Shh..tis nothing but a..
distichum of deciduous discomforts.

A River Leads

Spanish Moss hangs over my face
a gentle caress
green filaments brush my hair.
The flat-bottomed boat
glides on a slow current
but it pushes me,
it urges - but to where?

Florida has a lot of water,
this stream is green,
a backwater making its own way
as it slides between marshy land.

Perhaps it will wind into
a Floridian suburban stream somewhere,
there will be blue swimming pools,
perhaps the odd plastic flamingo?

I hope there will still be
these enrobed Cypress trees,
some curtains of trailing moss
that will part
revealing new ways for this boat to go.

Schisms

We are winded and on the ropes. Backwater banjo boys
strum against us. Clouds feed upon a shoaling light.
A bad day for going out or staying in.
A time to be sleepless. We must live timidly,
or push deeper into a glaring daylight 
toward the drugged dreams of the wide-eyed,
go shopping in the poorer parts of town
seek thrifty ways to survive among the striving,
give all our prayers to the birds; then eat them.
Some say they have heard the sky flap away
but many stuff fingers in their ringing ears
and gainsay both the seen and unseen.
There is no sanctuary in night's lean pantry,
the ransacked are laid bare.
Many pick the pockets of the anxious
rattle catch-penny cans on shoe-strings.
Misgivings trespass, tumble ever inward until 
reason becomes the reason to flee.
Paltry inklings gnaw at ever longer nights,
and we wonder what ‘tipping point’ tipped
what lid flipped; what line was crossed
as an ever louder twanging strums on?

Low Steps Into Sunrise

A bottom land
where green is thread through 
with a trailing mud.

A late fruited decay seeps and smears 
these low meadow pasture.
Pot-bellied dewdrops hang,
strung upon spawny strings.

Here toadstools labor to open 
upon cadaverous stems.
Tractor ruts have churned 
a common lea into
sully and mire.

Waders squelch, stirring 
drenched odors.
A slick grass slopes
here into oily shallows.

Beyond, the Ohio river shimmers bright
as it swiftly flows onward
delivering journeys
taken between moon and sun.

If you stand here splay-footed
and boot rooted,
you may catch a Great Blue Heron,
ascending,
its wings catching fire
within first shafts of golden light.

An illumination of a destination 
reached by this marshy dock 
of backwater day-peep.

National Poetry Day 2016

National Poetry Day is over
Over two hours on the stage.
That's one hellova long time
For one of my advancing age.
This is the Poetry city.
The talent just abounds,
Mixing in the bars and pubs
With open mic music sounds.

They spruced up the Centre
Just for this event
(I sometimes worry at the wisdom
Of where the money went)
When they've replaced the paving 
The barriers are all gone
When the renovation crews 
Have finished and moved on

Bring in your Year of Culture,
Next year, 2017
Catering for the minority
Ignoring thriving local scene.
But when the Culture Vultures
Have departed as if they'd never been
In  the pubs and clubs and bars 
We'll still have our living culture scene.

With the streets are all repaired and
We're again northern backwater place
I'll be in the pub 
A smile still on my face.
And I'll listen to the music,
Hear the spoken word,
Much of it as good or better
Than any City of Culture heard,

And I'll see the performance list
Every available spot full,
And think look what you've missed
In this Poetry City of Hull.
This is my city
 Chugging quietly away:
A City of northern Culture
Every single vibrant day

Backwater Justice

Poor Earl Crabtree, they tried him for murder
He claimed innocence; he’d never hurt her
   But Earl was transgender
   He’d gone on a bender
Pleaded guilty ~ he’d tried to pervert her

Interesting Times

We are winded and on the ropes.
Backwater banjo boys
strum against us,
clouds prey upon our minds.

Bad days for going out
or staying in.
A time to be sleepless
to be dazed by the paltry,
nibbled by dogged uncertainties.
We must live timidly,
bargain for more
expect the unexpected
thrive with less.
Go shopping
in the poorer parts of town,
seek thrifty ways where
the well-heeled fear to tread.

When Cable News
assured us that the sky
was about to flap away
we began to dig deeper
with cheap plastic shovels.

We networked a few viral prayers
sought the company of magpies
while the nigh and near
once more took us all by surprise.

Natural Metaphors of Our Love Affair

I search the backwater of your body,
 to calm my fears,
 the garden of your soul
 to germinate my seeds...
 In the torment river of life, i am
eternal fisherman
of your heart
and constant hunter
of me... simply
 that, naturally
thus...!

The Life and the River Meeting

life imitates,
the river imitates
life...
life is all
movement,
the river is turbulent,
sometimes life
is backwater,
the river sometimes
stops...
life hides
your feelings
in the depths
of the spirit,
the river its secrets
in the depths
from your bed...
Life and the river,
always follow
in front of...
pioneering
borders,
bypassing
obstacles,
seeking out
horizons.
just stop forward
in blue infinity:
The river, the blue of the sea,
life the blue sky...!

A Journey Taken

when travelling
know where to start from
and you will always arrive on time

we are never going to get
out of this backwater
of self or that
greater planetary Self
on rocket fuel

fording light years requires
a certain stillness

each person
is a facsimile of this world
what is outer is also inner
what is above is below

when we get this
we can really climate change

good to be a metaphorical tree
better to be a root
where the eyes of the forest are

everything has a center
find that
and start from there

any meaningful journey
is beneath the path taken
ignore that watchful stillness
and you will lose your way
between A and Z

Marigold

She was a gunslinger from way back.
She kept this under her hat.
A secret from everyone except the women she avenged.
They called her Marigold, because of her flowers.
When women who had been wronged learned of other women wronged,
They came to her in the middle of the night. 
She was unknown as a gunslinger in this backwater town.
They thought of her only as preacher’s wife. 
Preacher was always gone, preaching at a hanging or a revival.
The women came and told her what had happened.
After she verified it, she brought out her guns. Problem solved.

Interesting Times

We are winded and on the ropes.
Backwater banjo boys
strum against us.
Clouds feed upon
fleeting shoals of light.

A bad day for going out
or staying in.
A time to be sleepless.
We must live timidly
or push deeper into our graves
where the heart
constantly digs its way out.

We must go shopping
in the poorer parts of town.
Seek thrifty ways to survive-
canned goods, toilet paper;
give them to the birds.

Beneath dog day beds,
we growl under sad eyebrows.
When we heard the sky
was about to flap away
we began to dig deeper.

Insomnia

With raw eyes I view life
scalding tears, frozen stares
The companions to memoris sliced
from a mind grown old too soon.

Wanting to find a youth lost
the what-ifs plague and entice.
Counting upon the scars and cost
a deep backwater black lagoon.

Draw in a breath, feel the beat
a heart wretched and guilty.
A tear falls, then repeats
'neath the glow of a cold moon.

Yet the dawn does come again
to chase shadows from the mind.
A chance to wipe away my sin
a promise of sleep at dusk does loom.

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