Frontiersman Poem by James McLain

Being a prepubescent boy of twelve, and death
was a tent
under which we and others would know no sleep.

Hearing the things when we each took our turn,
I my hand covering my ears I felt it more than I heard
deep in the woods, at night gravel popping around our steel framed beds.
Each night after pow - wow, 'I fearing deep sleep
fearing that part of me would again, come 'sliding out—
ever so silently, being there for I think I was a thief, one was
a darker some what paler caricature of Dracula.

My superman briefs held no fancy red cape—
Lumbering out that cold clammy many fingered hand,
and warm large soggy foul mouth
beads of moonlit sweat on my trembling forehead
and you’d never wish to wake again after it having.

This creature like a cat fish, what were then tentacles
I now know were wisps of shredded hair
and the noises of wet sobbing fear the other boys made,
made complete when one would gasp out in the night
like a fish out of water
breathing it's last goodbye a lost whimper to the night
the dawn of a swan that came to soon
for us all
would some Floridian politician ask me now about this
what good can come from this
it is best left in the woods like the memories those graves,
where our child hood like milk was sucked from each carton, out in the woods
curried straws of the past when day light finally showed her face even more exhausted and tired
than the night before
each one to young to ever come, back home, they know now some have.

My flesh back then withdrew, but it knew not ever why.
There are only a few of us left alive
some how now that know the darker side of the black robe
that was meant to protect us.