BOUDREAUX’S PLACE

When the wind’s just right in the foggy night and the gators are croaking low

If you set your stomp near the edge of the swamp you can hear the Zydeco.

You can hear the crawfish in the wet and the mish playing the squeezebox waltz.

Swear that you’re dreaming of the moist and steaming and know not true from false.

The old Cypress trees do as they please when mother night turns back her black blinds

The swamp comes alive with verb and jive of music muddling in turtle minds.

If you have good sight you might see a light flickering frail like a dim daub halo

Down deep in the swamp where wild things romp and the green giant palmetto grow.

There are worlds unseen in this great between that exist happily without regret

If you go there you must beware and remember always to never ever forget.

So now is a tale that will not grow stale or be left with a sad widow’s face.

Let’s pass a good time in the dark sublime and go down to Boudreaux’s place.

The pirogue’s wake makes no mistake as it wells softly through the gook and the grim

You believe you’re dead (it’s all in you’re head) pray God you don’t have to swim.

Soon you’re lost, shaken and tossed, and the way back is a way you don’t know.

All you have for direction is the swamp’s election the light of a holy glow.

Two hours have passed and you’re at your last, when a red drake buzzes the skiff.

You’ve given up reason, fear is treason—you wonder that all mighty “IF…”

The drake takes the rope that tethers all hope and pulls hard on the float of being

You’re struck with wonder, all reason asunder at the sight that comes into seeing.

There in the dream is what would seem a dry landing with bright torches ablaze,

And Crawfish dancing and raccoons romancing in murk of the swamp’s velvet haze.

There on the dock you see in your shock an old man riding an alligator.

He calls you in from the din, says, “I expected you sooner or later.”

You know that you’re there, you don’t know just where, and the man is calling you in.

You’ve come so far and you ain’t got a car, so you just get out and grin.

The drake’s quick quack falls smack flat on your back and the old man comes to embrace.

You’re heart is raging, but the kind man’s a Cajun, “Sha, welcome to Boudreaux’s place.”

Now the smell of the place has a spicy taste begging drool to come from your mouth,

You know there’s food but you can’t be rude because you have been bred in the South.

Your feet got the hop you can’t stop—there’s a Cajun band inside to please ya.

The old man looks shy with a sparkling eye, “We take MasterCard and Visa.”

Inside is a show no mortal can know save by the mushroom’s delusion;

But who is to say what’s the play and what is real or just an illusion.

And how you got back no man can track, but you did before sunrise return.

The only proof for telling is the dwelling of the bill for Visa’s concern.

There are dreams that you dream that have no seams and case the pillows of real.

There are visions so grand you need a hand—many are the kind that you feel.

There are things in the swamp that circle and romp known only by indigenous grace.

Things that flare and things that glare; not the least is Boudreaux’s Place.