Mud Music In the swelter of the delta, on the river sides, by the pools, by the ponds— mud music. Frog croaks and bongs— mud music. Murmuring mosquitoes— mud music. The sloppy squelch of toes when you choose to enter the ooze and make the mud your muse— mud music. The syncopated sibilance of reeds as they whisper in the breeze— mud music. The slap and flick of frolicking children’s feet— mud music. The secret sliver of unseen snakes seeking slaughter— mud music The lip and lap of lines of water and silence, silence too. Mud music asleep in river beds, mud pure, mud deep.
—Submitted on 10/03/2022
A collection of Bruce Greenhalgh‘s appears in 2018 FSP Anthology 42 and New Poets 19. His poems have appeared in anthologies including Poetry d’Amour (WA Poets Inc. 2016 and 2019) and journals including the Weekend Australian and inDaily. Greenhalgh lives in Adelaide, South Australia where he reads, writes and occasionally recites poetry.
Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.
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