The Jungle Rises by Jeff Schiff

 


 

Jeff Schiff is the author of That hum to go by (Mammoth Books, 2012), Mixed Diction, Burro Heart, The Rats of Patzcuaro, The Homily of Infinitude, and Anywhere in this Country. His work has appeared internationally in more than eighty periodicals, including The Alembic, Grand Street, The Ohio Review, Poet & Critic, The Louisville Review, Tendril, Pembroke Magazine, Carolina Review, Chicago Review, Hawaii Review, Southern Humanities Review, River City, Indiana Review, Willow Springs,and The Southwest Review. He has been a professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago since 1987. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jungle Rises

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There where the croaking

        rises from the inchoate

                and vestigial

 

There in the palpable horizon

        in globule & rivulet

                in the hemorrhagic gush

 

slimy

        beyond absorption

                There in the moldy coalescence

 

and vaporous ooze

        in the nameless viscosities

                and horrific bobbings

 

There in the leaping

        venomous

                yellow toadiness

 

and billion undiscovered emetics

        noteworthy toxins

                tongued forth

 

and spittled to the heart

        There where all are forced

                to dwell in their hirsute

 

creature bags

        There

                where none can vanquish

 

their squirmings

        their greenest genesis

                There

 

the jungle rises

        through cress

                through spiky palmetto

 

through everything we cannot hold at bay

 

 

Jeff Schiff

 

I was paddling by Jeff Schiff

Notes from the Black Walnut Kingdom by Jeff Schiff

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