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Tag: New Orleans

What Remains is Greater

Published on August 27, 2005

It matters not how much the wind may blow,
nor if the seas should rise up through the floor;
the anchor of my craft is sunk below,
and I am to this spot moored evermore.

Should this fierce season flail its storms at me
and seek to wrest my hold from this small spot,
to face the torrent is my destiny;
what comes, if good or bad, shall be my lot.

‘Tis not an act of courage, or last stand,
but simply put, I’ve realized to run
is just as futile; what good are new plans
that rest on such foundations? I’ve begun

to realize the import of a place:
it rests not in its grand design or sport,
but rather in the nature of its space,
that finds in such small things such great import.

What if the ship is wretched loose from its chain,
its timber torn asunder in the fray?
Despite the great destruction, what remains
is greater than what’s lost. And so, I stay.

27 AUG 2005

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As if the hazel mud

Published on July 20, 2005

As if the hazel mud
its edges flecked with dull green
and salt-stain,
cracked and peeling along
the summer dry edges
of the viaduct
that ran its length,
a brittle concrete spine,
down through the
creosote valley
from cinder block to overpass
were somehow host
to hordes of unseen ghosts
where once the heartless roots
of dandelion split
the grey white skin into
psoriasis scabs and lesions.

That’s how the city’s heavy
mid-July became a poem;
rending itself, in slow catharsis,
from some meaningless
overpass photo op
into a metaphor
of urban blight.

As if that were enough:
to use each word from that
threadbare thesaurus,
marking up the boring proof
that being marble, made a statue,
with no sign of art
beyond the lexicon
of vague pretension.

That’s how you become a writer:
just convince yourself
your vision isn’t just another
meaningless sight.

In your world, I can never be a poet.

20 JUL 2005

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The Blackout

Published on July 11, 2005

The streets are filled with idle, itching hands,
their owners on the prowl in vain pursuit
of some pastime to fill the vacant hours
in darkened rooms enswamped with summer heat.

Without their cellphones, TV sets and games,
and fast-food fare likewise beyond their grasp,
how will the city’s folk be entertained?
On what diversions will they spend their cash?

Driveways are strewn with fallen trees and wires;
on front lawns, baking in the noon-day sun,
we sit in wrought iron chairs, and just perspire.
And wait. There’s not much else that can be done.

Who wants to light a flame to cook a meal,
and add the stove’s hell-fire to this malaise?
It’s better to go hungry than to broil;
besides, the food’s gone bad. It’s been two days.

Tonight, the house is hotter in than out;
by candlelight, perhaps I’ll read a while.
I miss the air conditioner’s white noise;
Too bad such silence has gone out of style.

11 JUL 2005

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The summer in New Orleans melts

Published on June 17, 2005

The summer in New Orleans melts
ambition from your bones;
and inspires dreams of northern climes,
of much more temperate zones

where flowers last a day or two
before they start to wilt,
and the ground does not suck ravenous
at water where it’s spilt,

where saunas are a novelty.
Here, one does not require
expensive redwood boxes built
just so you can perspire.

The air fights you at every breath;
it’s thick, and wet and hot,
and lays to waste wrought iron,
turns all exposed wood to rot.

The oh-so-languid pace of winter
here gets slower still;
expect no summer revolutions
in this fetid swill.

17 JUN 2005

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A June night like a fat man at a bus stop

Published on June 1, 2005

The fetid dark sits on the house
like a fat man at the bus stop,
sweat pooled on the plastic seat
too narrow for his sturdy frame,
and the night jasmine’s heavy scent
assaults the senses, cloying sweet,
like the memory of his aftershave
after the bus has come and gone;
mixed with the bitter-sour sub-note
of endless folds of tortured flesh
chafed raw from polyester slacks
and trapped in nylon support hose.

Tonight the fat man’s breathing slow,
his rough exhale hot sticky clouds;
frantic mosquitoes seek its source,
sensing the vast expanse it hides.
There in the candle’s flicker flame
they hover in vampire patrols,
drawn by the jasmine scented stench
that seeps out with each shift or twitch.

1 JUN 2005

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The Swarm

Published on May 26, 2005

Like whirling dervishes they congregate
around the bright lit porches and streetlamps,
their bodies hurling like mad wax-winged clouds
that seek where water meets with tender wood.
Against their onslaught, darkened houses crouch
low to the earth, hoping their bones are dry
enough to seem less tempting to this horde,
and seem to hold their breath ’til it swarms by.
They even chase cars down the wood-lined streets,
as if those headlamps led like piper’s notes
to glens and forests filled with hardwood trunks
where they could feast for endless hours in peace.

From block to block they travel, seeking out
a damp and fetid place where food is near;
and then, when night’s ink blots the grey of dusk
they fold their wings, crawl off and disappear.

It’s said they follow, blind, a rebel queen
who must split from her family or die;
to save the kingdom as it grows in size,
each daughter takes a legion to the skies.
Their soldier’s stomachs fill along their trail,
from Pontchartrain uptown to Magazine;
through live oak and great cypress-covered streets
destruction marks the way that they have been.
Where they’ve encamped, the kindling’s turned to dust;
at just a touch great beams and walls collapse,
while parque floors and Quarter ceilings flake
away to skeletons and fire traps.

Tonight the window lamps are left at dim.
The armies of Formosans are astir;
and woe to those whose timber lies beneath
the echo of that hungry cassion’s whir.

26 May 2005

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River Road

Published on May 26, 2005

Down at the end of river road
the houses show off concrete knees,
with skirts drawn just above the mud
that creeps up through the Augustine
beginning early June.

Some rivers, when they start, seem nothing
like their parent ocean’s genes;
they use the drying distance from the shore
while they’re still condensation hung
from gray and pregnant clouds
to form their own personalities.

Yet, even these stray souls return,
some from great lengths, and seek their source;
and once the delta’s fingers grasp
their children’s hands in welcome back,
all rivers lose their separateness.

So slow, they seep back to the sea with saturating steps;
and at the end of river road they meet up, with a roar.

26 May 2005

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