Long Bayous Poems
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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 even then,
Perhaps so even more.
More than when I finally arrived,
The apple of my parents’ eyes
Crawling ‘round the grass and grounds
You placed down here for me,
When all I knew was sky is blue
And love was wild and free.
And as I grew tall and learned to run
I looked for you in shade and sun.
In churches, bibles, liturgies
And things I could and could not see
Like ocean waves and winds that scatter,
Poetry, symmetry and thoughts that matter.
And this idea of independence
And freedom from tyranny,
The pursuit of happiness, truth and justice
And the bounties that they bring.
And other things we take for granted
Like cats, dogs, frogs and birds,
Rivers flowing, flowers growing
And every song and kind of music played and heard.
While I never gave up and never let down
My search for You through cities and towns.
From tiny islands in the old gulf stream
To highlands and by lands
From Mount Olympus to New Orleans.
And continued my search with purpose and worth
In libraries filled with books
Of countless pages throughout the ages
How others thought you might look.
And if you are real, you know how I feel
About the majesty of Your creation.
Planets, stars and the universe writ large,
Consciousness, curiosity and causation.
From the first thinking man who was able to plan
His future among all things,
While looking for You just as I do
In places where he once lived and dreamed…
Down in the bogs and bayous
Where cypress trees grow tall,
And on the moon and Mars and in honky-tonk bars
And leaves turning colors in the fall.
And in the hearts and minds of others
And the catchlight in their eyes,
Hoping I might find you there,
In their laughter and their hope-filled cries.
Even now I’m still seeking and wondering
If you can hear my plea within,
I pray dear God if we’re not at odds:
Will I find You in the end?
© Terrell Martin, 01/29/2025
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 or hunker down, to damage he has come
He leveled many buildings, and shut the power down
He sent his rains to Houston, to sit there and to pound
Houston, a large city, fourth largest in the land
Rained so hard, in hours, was no dry place to stand
Rained a record fifty inches, that's the Roman numeral L
Overflowed the bayous, made life a living hell
Few had evacuated, of six million people plus
Would have been impossible, a traffic jamming fuss
Bumper to bumper everywhere with auto, truck and bus
Would even make the best of us, wring our hands and cuss
The water rose, it did not stop, covered roads from fork to fork
More area than the cities of Chicago and New York
No one quite expected Harvey to sit and pour
Until the first floors flooded and headed for the second floor
Water, many places, flowing fast and overhead
Rescue workers needed or thousands would be dead
Boats and trucks and copters came to do the work
Reminiscent of the rescue, of the soldiers, at Dunkirk
The heroes came from everywhere, left their families and friends
To risk their lives for others, and the rescuing begins
Hour after hour, from rooftops, trees and cars
Stranded ones were rescued by strangers from afar
The Cajun Navy from Louisian, the governor called the guard
Florida sent their Fish and Game, rescuing long and hard
Soon more than thirty thousand were brought to drier land
Rescuers so exhausted that they could hardly stand
Still they kept on going on helping all of those in need
And took them to the shelters where they could sleep and feed
Some died in the effort, not all in need were found
Some rescuers gave their all, and no longer are around
This is what life is all about, the way that it should fall
We should respond to others' needs, for the better good of all
Think about your fellow man, in all you do and say,
Don't be the Harvey victim, be the rescuer today.
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 like Pennsylvania
But not so much, I think, as the Commonwealth of Virginia.
My military time was spent in the beautiful state of Hawaii,
Which is nothing like Wisconsin or the Show Me State Missouri.
Montana is a state of wide-open spaces, unlike most of Indiana
And neither of them compared to the bayous of south Louisiana
New Mexico and Nevada are far out west, not like Arkansas,
Lying close to the Great Salt Lake Basin of neighboring Utah.
On a trip to visit some friends in the Willamette Valley of Oregon
A side trip took me to the northwest corner of Washington,
I went through the mountains of Colorado and northern Idaho
Before going through Michigan on my return trip home to Ohio.
Alabama is a long way from Delaware, not far from Mississippi,
I do not remember it having the green mountains of, say, Tennessee
I have some old and dear friends I visited in southern Minnesota,
I traveled on a Greyhound bus through Badlands of North Dakota.
The great central part of the United States lies north of Texas
Kansas is a wide, flat state where tall corn grows in summertime.
I remember visiting Iowa and Nebraska on several trips out west,
It is rather difficult to figure out which state I liked the best.
Neither Wyoming nor Connecticut border on North Carolina,
Nor does Arizona touch the low country of South Carolina
I didn't go through New York or Minnesota on my way to Florida,
Consulting my atlas, I found I was in the peach state, Georgia.
I have eaten delicious crab cakes by the seashore in Maryland
And quickly passed through Providence in small Rhode Island
I followed the Lincoln Trail through southern Illinois…then,
Having seen Oklahoma, what two states have I never been in?
Isn’t she beautiful?
When you top a steep slope and look down upon her hills, tumbling over each other for miles, covered in greenery of new spring, you realize that she, the land, is immaculate.
But she, the people, is often disappointing.
Do not blame the ground; she only holds them.
You shouldn’t blame her, everyone everywhere will never be perfect.
She is no special home for those who are intolerant and bigoted.
Yet I find myself blaming her anyway.
They are part of her after all.
It is not the land’s fault for the people, though she is soaked with unjust blood.
But so is the rest of this nation!
There is no exception in the entirety of this harrowed country.
Let’s love her canyons and glittering caves for what they are, exquisite facets of the land.
Her people are another matter, yet they should be carefully examined.
Let us not dwell on them for now.
We will critique them in good time.
We should appreciate her for what she is.
A honey sweet land, caught in the wisps of fresh spring.
Furiously flowering in the sweltering heat of the South.
Bare trees grasping the bright blue in the dead of December.
River run deep, like veins feeding the bayous and lakes of her body.
Her heart lies in the wide basin of the river valley, pumping the Ozarks away for the Ouachita Mountains.
Birds sing and soar in her sky; their songs her voice abroad.
Grasses sway in her breeze; her gorgeous flowing locks.
Fish dance in her waters; her dynamic ideas.
Trees dig into her earth; her ever maturing mind.
Rain pools in puddles that reflect the starlight; her mourning in twilight.
Cicadas and crickets roar in summer symphonies; her laughter in the evening.
Gloaming her sigh as she lays down her head and aurora her yawn as a new day begins.
Oh my love, mea dulcis amor, if only your politics weren’t so foul, you would be Eden.
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 to die,
Won’t settle for living
In the past,
As though it didn’t matter.
This is where
I studied life and love,
Knowing my neighbor,
Sharing the burden
Of cottonmouth dreams
And moss-hidden nights
Beneath sweltering pines.
This is who I am,
As salty as the sweat
Upon your brow.
But the music
Has been silenced,
My people no longer sway
In the humid breeze,
Muted by ravaging winds
And torrent tides.
Drowning in the madness
Of hopelessness,
We don’t feel
Our narrated past anymore.
Now we count
The changes of hours
Marked by saturating grief;
There is only today.
No human should have to bear
These ravages
Polluting our memory,
Yet we are helpless
To prevent
The scars for generations.
Credence Clearwater Revival,
Tennessee Williams,
Affects my blood,
And I cannot forget
Louis Armstrong
Or B.B. King.
Jimmy Buffett,
Harry Connick, Jr.,
And scores of others
Will help them survive.
Till I once again
Find myself
In the House of the Rising Sun,
Until a Streetcar Named Desire
Fills my senses,
I shall mourn,
My tears flooding
The mighty Mississippi River,
To overflowing.
Way down here
In the swamps of Dixie,
Where I learned to dance
With voodoo grinning,
I remember the music,
Taste the brackish waters,
Before Katrina knew me,
And standing below an American Flag,
I think the South
Shall rise again.
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 lindsay could ever explore
while the birth of confusion balances over land and sea
perhaps i should have looked away as your scaly form
crawled over my flesh the flame flickered
the lantern fell your gloating pout captured me
in your haste in your lure daintily aimously mine eyes
leadeth me through hidden trenches a cold damp stynch
of blood soaked wood weeping moss throughout
the musty bayous perhaps i should have looked away
while white sheets were being draped startling
my trembling wide knees stifled my embrace
as i clung to my father's fist lincolns hat tumbles
kennedy's heart rumbles
while my pappy's blood smeared over france
staining britains arches flowing throughout
the niles of jordan pouring into pakistani borders
perhaps i should have looked away
while staring into my blind grandmother's
faithful gaze as her hands clapped the sound
of many men while hatred spread a contagious
outbreak silencing syria corrupting mankind
perhaps i should have looked away my mind captured
followed by this ageless odorless soundless calm
liquifying malice greed and shame into a vile mist of envy
seeping through the pore's of green pastures contaminating
golden corn green giants purdue farms honey suckled plums
red delicious apples into rotten tomatoes tye dying tainted cotton
fields of hanging levi's perhaps i should have looked away then
when none not even one of us could see hear fear evil nor end
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 and drink coffee and pee
Then head down to the boats to make the rounds
Sleepy but excited about what we might find had taken our bait
Once in the boat we would traverse the cypress tress and stumps just below the water
And find our lines
With headlights we would shine down into the water as mosquitoes and gnats floated around our heads
My brother would be in the front of the boat pulling up the line.
I would sit in the middle ready to unhook whatever we pulled from the depths of the murky water.
The old man was in the back keeping the boat afloat and calling the shots. He had grown up in the bayous of South Louisiana and knew ropes.
Sometimes we pulled blue channel cats that weighed in at 40 pound other times a soft shell turtle. No matter we would eat them all.
After we had hauled in our catch we would turn of the night-lights and drift for a while in the night and gaze upon the stars.
Gods gift to all of us for being up so early.
There were fewer lights back then and you could see the stars piercing the night like a needle.
I never forgot those nights.
And yes I ate turtle. At my house you ate what was put on your plate. McDonalds didn’t exist to my father. You gathered and you ate what God gave you.
You can’t always get what you want. But you get what you need.
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 the prairie,
But the farmer made me stop,
Said to get on out of here,
And stop damaging his crops.
Then a rancher scowled at me,
And no pasture would he loan,
There’s no place on the prairie
For men who want to roam.
I walked up to the North Woods,
The backcountry of Maine,
Two days in a forest ranger
Said I could not remain.
He said it was timber land,
No squatters would they know,
Guess there’s no room in these trees
For a man who wants to roam.
So then I found the Rockies,
Such a vast and empty space,
Figured I could disappear
Deep within that rugged place.
But skiers came upon me,
Said that I messed up their snow,
Even in the high country
There’s just no space to roam.
The cedar swaps, big bayous,
And deserts so vast and dry,
Rain forests of Cascadia,
All these places did I try.
They’ve no love for wanderers,
And they always told me so,
What happens to men like me
When there’s no place left to roam?
One day I was in Florida,
And I bought a rocket ship,
They sent me to the heavens,
I broke past Earth’s orbit.
Facing that great, big darkness,
With the vacuum and the cold,
I saw what I dreamed about,
Such endless space to roam…
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 BEYOND VOSS SHORE
WHILE CRAVING TATTOOED SMILES
THE UNSEEN GESTURES OF MINES
THROUGHOUT THE GALLERIES
OF INDUSTRIAL SOLITUDE
WHY I'D BEGAN TO OPEN PACKAGES
OF MEMORIES SAFELY TUCKED AWAY
BESIDE HOPE AND CHARITY
WHY I FOLLOWED MADNESS
CREEPING THROUGH THE FOREST AGAIN
AWAKENING SUDDEN EMOTIONS
BOTTLED I SUPPOSE GRAVELY
DANCING TO THE TUNES OF BROKEN
FOLKLORES TALES WHISPERING
THE SONG OF POVERTY CATERING
TO BAYOUS OF HASTE
WHERE SACRED GROUND OPENS
EXPOSING THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES
MY SOUL HAD MASTERED A QUICKENING
BALANCE A MEANINGFUL GATHERING
HOLDING ON TO COPENHAGENS
SECRET TUNNELS WHERE KOFF
DESIGNED BLUE PRINTS AND PATTERNS
CAPTURING MY EMPTINESS OF REMEMBERING
THE WHITE LAB COATS THE CRYING LAMBS
WRITTEN BY
YOLANDA NICHOLSEN
3/9/2013
FROM MY HOSPITAL BED
IN TAMPA HEART ATTACK
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 am I here? What
do I seek?
The darkness
thickens as I move
forward
Unsteady now, steps
made with
trepidation
I sense movement. I
am not alone
Something sinister
awaits me
Whispers. Jumbled
sounds. Hollow
Seem to have moved
closer
Dare not look behind
The grip of fear
engulfs my body
A light. Did I see
a light?
There. So bright.
Blinding
On my neck, the
stale breath of
death
I cannot breath. My
terror is too great
It is too late. I
did not listen
I have found the
alter of the damned
I know better then
to be here
Things happen here.
Bad things
11/20/2011
I once took a trip
up some of the
bayous in Louisiana.
It was getting dark
on our return and
every once in a
while, you would see
a light in the
trees, in the middle
of nowhere. That
was the inspiration.
The rest I made up.