THERETHEN

My private Pensacola jungle

overlooked the bay where

I was isolated in live oaks

and Spanish moss. It is there

I hid to read and be transported

to imaginary worlds

from some wherewhen

novel I read while the sun

blew thick in the palmettos

and Blue Angels did pirouettes

over the heads of rabbits,

snakes, insects and me.

I’d run headlong to a third level

dimension, willingly suspended

like now~and~then,

floating hot, hanging by a strand

I watched short fish-flights splashing

for escape or attention in the bay,

not the Gulf.

Real life is a prison...

Hidden in my jungle

from all the city stuff

noisestrife strafing ears

hard pavement bones

metal cars, loud voices

the street sizzles, my

bete noir bane

and yours too.

The visitors come and go

to the tune of their own clock

They leave a little of themselves

to keep me company as I transfer

from one cell to another,

remember the sound of waves

on the sand, and wind in the moss.

I could have been a beach bum

instead of arrested and stuck

in all this bustle...

and now it is too late.

The tide has quenched my fire,

I can’t go back to all that

water under my bridge where

a cloud of timemosquitoes

bloodsuck my memory to

dust in the wind.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Love the fish flights for escape or attention. The last three lines are such a release for this poem of escaping and/or attention.
You've got mine, Vol.
In the first stanza did you mean "Blue Angels"?---
Great piece of writing, my new favorite from you.
j.

[Vol]

J,
Thank you so much! and yes, Angels... sometimes my brain slips. Angels indeed! They practiced frequently right over my head over Santa Rosa Sound.
I've been an escape artist most of my life... I'm a poet...
Vol

[bettayetta]

Hi Vol, Blue Angels as in air show? THE BLUE ANGELS as in NAVY?

Ah, Vol, I was 'bout to sign off and saw this!

You are amazing! Are you okay? You're not living under a pier? I think there's a 1-800-HELP

[Samuel Dickens]

Although we grew up in different environments, yours is familiar, thanks to my time in the navy. While you had palmettos, I had persimmon trees, but we both found solace in nature. Fine memories, well described.

[Vol]

Samuel,
Thanks for relating and saying so. I cannot even imagine growing up on the streets of ANY city! In fact I have grown so weary of New York as the source of almost every comedy or detective/police show, I turn them off as soon as I realize it might be from there. My concern is that New York and Los Angles have become America's voice and all art, written , fine, or music, must meet their standards or be considered as inconsequential and meaningless. Give me forests, babbling creeks, and farms over sidewalks and gutters, or Broadway any day!

[Samuel Dickens]

We are the same in our dislike for cities, even for entertainment filmed there! Give me the country any time.

[carl]

really enjoying some of your word images - very surreal - tripping the light fantastic Alice style defeated escapism - glad I came by to read - carl

[Vol]

Me too Carl.
I was remembering the time I would crawl deep under the brush and vines to a little pocket where I could stretch our and read... the wildlife never seemed to notice, especially the rabbits and birds. Looking back it is a wonder I never met any rattlesnakes, they were everywhere...

[carl]

I grew up on a farm - we harvested corn by hand and tied the stalks into shocks - my hiding place from two older pest brothers was to push and shove into the shock and form a inner chamber like a tepee for solitude - spiders and mice the only visitors I experienced.

[Vol]

Nothing beats a private fort in the corn... My most formative summers were spent on my Uncle's farm north of Memphis, cotton, corn cattle and cousins!

[Lorry]

And perhaps it is apt that I chose to read this one now Vol, in my own personal wooded haven't, just after I scraped myself off the ceiling as we got a government alert that I mistook for the four minute warning as the government decided to inmate all phones and screech panic in our ears about, of all things a high wind alert I'm place on Friday!
I'm sure you'll see the irony of that one!
I do wonder how many heart attacks they just caused though with their danger to life alert that I thought should have a quieter alert warning you of the incoming heart attack in a text!
Just goes to show you how the government can ruin any ideal, just as long as they are loud enough.
I can't go back to all that water under the bridge either. Next on my dream destination is an uninhabited island with a very deep bunker, where no cell signal can penetrate!
😃

[Vol]

The only thing that has saved us so far is government ineptitude... and I was reading this moring that Eowyn ha left Rohan and galloped up the Atlantic to smite you folks... I'd watch out, she was so horney, she took out the head Rinwraith...

[Lorry]

Looks like we're in for a skelpin' tomorrow. (Slapped silly btw) 😜

[Vol]

In the f*****g DEAD OF WINTER!

[Poetic Beauty]

This sounds like the perfect escape from the noise and chaos of the city. Where horns blare too loud and the concrete feels like hell fire. A quiet sanctuary in an overstimulating and crowded environment.

Love each line of this poem and the story it tells. The details are beau and each line crafted perfectly for this piece

[Vol]

PB!
Thank you, my friend. When i lived there, deep in the Florida Liveoak jungle, our nearest neighbor was two miles away. It was a time of great adventure when I was 14 or so.
Vol

[Poetic Beauty]

Sounds like an amazing place to have lived for a short bit

[Vol]

And at just the right age, especially having seen "Swiss Family Robinson!"