“Mummy Bag Blues” by Andy Riley

From Mummy Bag Blues

A series only added to when sleeping in a sleeping bag that night.  This section was written while backpacking near Greyrock Mountain, CO.

1.

The Mountain is in

   a constant

State of disintegration.

Pine Soil drops

and turns to

soil

everything is falling

into itself

making a mountain.

2.

Little blue butterflies

I wonder how

high they have to

fly

      for them to

    to get scared of it.

They were all gathered around this puddle

Trying not to get stepped on

3.

Gathering water

  with a syringe

I saw everything alive

in the whole universe.

Little rolly polly lookin’ things

swimming

with their weird

delicate wing-

flippers.

I saw all sorts of

Spiders I didn’t

even know existed

   I rustle like the

Plants with my

bandana

I saw

     Great      Wings(?)

I saw a bug

 floating upsidedown

  walking on the

   Underside

  of the Water

as another

emerged from mud.

I’m so glad

there’s water!

     the sun

  in front

    and above

   me in haze

not orange or red

but blue grey

like childhood.

blue grey like

sustenance

Thank you,

4. morn.

The Chair wet

my ass hanging out

cold!

I stand

trying to spit out

words

in a pleasing way.

for this last big fog cloud

over the meadow

and for myself

and for the ground

I am still depressed

   and ashamed.

but less so because

the ground is wet.

About Andy Riley
He/Him/His

Andy Riley is a poet of nineteen years of age from Fort Collins, Colorado.  He grew up on the Front Range and and in the "Nebraska Outback" as it is called by the tourism board.  He identifies with the "Bear Shit on the Trail" school of poetry.  He is a poet of place, wherever that may be, but Colorado is home.