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
