I am ankle deep in a stinking bog
which squelches, rudely pulling at my foot.
Stranded alone in so much sucking sog
I marvel at the places I’ve been put.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I try to struggle against this slime
I know I shall go under with no trace;
perhaps I should surrender hope this time,
and, slowly sinking, muster dying grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or, maybe if I, graceless, lay me down,
immersed halfway in lukewarm reeking muck,
and float, suspended, manage not to drown,
I’ll find myself aground on firmer luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If, rank and damp, I knock upon your door
will you mind my dripping on the floor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deb Levine is a (mostly) formal poet, scientist, and life coach. She is Academic Chair for Physical Science at Anne Arundel Community College. Although she majored in Physics at UNC-Chapel Hill, she also completed most of the coursework for the Creative Writing major as a short fiction author. Dr. Levine lives in Stevensville, MD on Kent Island with one cat, two parrots, eight chickens, and the neighbor\u2019s rooster. She dreams in sonnet form.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Bogged Down” was originally published in Sparks of Calliope<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am ankle deep in a stinking bogwhich squelches, rudely pulling at my foot.Stranded alone in so much sucking sogI marvel at the places I’ve been put. If I try to struggle against this slimeI know I shall go under with no trace;perhaps I should surrender hope this time,and, slowly sinking, muster dying grace. Or, … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-WJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3641"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3649,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641\/revisions\/3649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}