Best Bayous Poems

Hello God, are you there?
I’ve been searching for you everywhere.
Starting out in my mother’s womb 
Not very long ago,
When my life was barely beginning 
Before I began to know…

Anything about you 
And this world I was headed toward.   
I was looking for you...

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Dimly lit, I sit
in a Mexican kitchen
near the Tropic of Cancer.
A TV is tuned
to inane noises;
dogs at my feet,
oranges in a bowl
on a table:
a specific place and time.
And I am dreaming --
dreaming of Louisiana
in twilight hours --
dreaming of short winter days and
summer's green, bright mornings.
Country...

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4:00 AM time to check the trot-lines.
Catfish and turtles strung out deep in the muddy waters
We would string the lines from cypress trees across a channel
And mark them with fluorescent tape so we knew which ones were ours
In the early morning we would get up...

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"He made a difference."

Gramps, my mother's father, 
Dave Luke -- my grandfather, 
a tall unlettered white (decidedly white) 
Louisiana man -- was born August 1888.  
He lived 87 years.  He grew under 
the stern paternal gaze of his father, 
Duncan (Grandpa Dunc.) Early...

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(Apropos Of Juneteenth Celebration)

This is the day the Lord has made;
Let us rejoice and celebrate
Because we’re still here…marching on
With our eyes stayed on the prize.
Let us rejoice and celebrate
Because we’re aware that we are not
The children of Sisyphus; rather,
We are the children of the Womb...

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I am walking in your footprints again. My bare feet are so small when contained within the imprint of your own We have walked this soft grassy road, side by side. Now I walk only with your essence. I feel the brush of your skin...

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perhaps i should have looked away 
my mind takes me back to the general store 
of black liquorish sticks red cobble stone walk ways 
the reading of immortal poems as william mason
 
sounds off hot off the press the negroe spirit soar
something that only vachel...

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Way down here
In the swamps of Dixie,
Where I learned to dance
With gators grinning,
There’s music like none
You’ve ever heard.
It laces the bayous
In passionate tones,
Enough to make you
Want to move your feet.

There’s more history
In this place
Than you might imagine,
Alive and burning
On the edges 
Of modern civility.
It refuses...

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Broken       “Perfect”       
Blowout      Preventer
Billowing    Petroleum
Burning       Profusely

Bodies          Paining
Burning   ...

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The Hurricane was Harvey
By Franklin Price
8/31/2017

The hurricane was Harvey, what an unassuming name
Left the western Yucatan. across the Gulf he came
Building up his power to a category four
Slammed into the Texas coast with wind, and rain, and more
Coming into Rockport with winds one thirty some
Evacuate...

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(Apropos Of Juneteenth Celebration)

This is the day the Lord has made;
Let us rejoice and celebrate
Because we’re still here…marching on
With our eyes stayed on the prize.
Let us rejoice and celebrate
Because we’re aware that we are not
The children of Sisyphus; rather,
We are the children of the Womb...

Continue reading...

GENTLY MY MIND PORTRAYED 
AN EMPTY SADNESS WHILE I'D CRADLED 
THEE NESTLED THOUGHT
LEAVING THE INFAMOUS BONDARIES 

AWAITING THE VIEWING 
OF THOMAS MANN'S QUIET SETTING
BETWEEN THE SOLID STRUCTURES 
OF STILL RUNNING WATER SEEPING
 
OVER THE GOTHIC STONERY 
THAT CARRIED SILENT WISHES 
BENEATH THE FOUNTAINS CORE 
TRAVELING...

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I know better then
to be here.  I've
been told.
Things happen here.
Bad things.
Yet I am drawn.  No.
 More like willed.
I have not the power
to resist this place

I smell the decay. 
The rotting stench
Windfall trees
laying as if in wait
My tread  but a
whimper in this wood
Why...

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I have traveled the world over but like the United States best
From Maine to California, north and south, east, and west.
Born in West Virginia, I live in the Commonwealth of Kentucky
Have visited Vermont, New Hampshire and, of course, New Jersey.

Massachusetts, in New England, is historical...

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When I was a small child
I would always be outside,
Must have blazed a hundred paths
Just to see what I could find.
Then they put me in a suit,
And I cried out “I won’t go!”
Left my home for wandering
To see where I might roam.

I trekked out through...

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