The Trip Through the Swamp

Sleep takes me through a swamp
on a multi-directional trail, pulling new arms
and ears and erogenous organs out of my body,

the trip is a luxuriant growth process, and I am
in every new part at once, in every earthworm
eating its way through the mud,

I move as a tendril that sucks up the muck and
my fingers snake around restlessly winding
new shoots, wrestling with them with teeth bared,

the direction of the trip is not defined in space and time
but by desires, and the ground covered is the lively
landscape of sensations on the march to attack,

it's the trip of the landscape as well, entering my being
through any orifice and slithering out again through
another, I'm tied to a jungle not only around me but within,

I'm a budding flower in a womb,
trapping and devouring
the fragrance of the mouth that feeds on me,

the swamp is filling my eyes
with nightness that lashes me
with colors never felt in daylight,

the trip is powered by the multiple orgasms of the swamp,
convulsions of constant re-birth, the ecstasy
of turning green, the delirium of choking . . .

Some day the greedy hand of daylight will fail
to pluck me and squeeze me in its gleam-crusted vase,
leaving me free to crochet sleep's redolent rot.

— Paul Sohar