-
Promiscuously Autobiographical
“I’m promiscuously autobiographical, but it’s never gotten me into trouble.” Samuel R. Delaney, interviewed by The New Yorker Continue reading
-
El Nopal (39)
A better fortune teller confided once it meant: no one comes to see the prickly pear until it blossoms… Continue reading
-
Venice’s Relentless Tides
Fuck whoever is behind the crossbar.This is not about who was crucified and why. This is introduction to Western Civilization. Read the syllabus, do the work or you’ll nevermake it out of the auditoriums.This is not a safe space. This is the world you aspire to inherit in all its glorious horrorsa British Museum of… Continue reading
-
Polaroid
A post prompted by the editor’s note to the November 2025 Poetry I had left unopened. Poetry resembles photography from the age of the film camera. There was no phone in your hand. You had to fetch the thing, load it with film carefully and advance it to the ready, wait for the flash to… Continue reading
-
Bury me in that warm country
And it was at that age … Poetry arrivedin search of me. — Pablo Neruda A poem from almost 25 years ago, back when I started writing poetry again having given it up in my youth. This was written while I still lived in Fargo we’re fleeting summer was a pleasure. Lilacs at the lastLilacs… Continue reading
-
That Roaring Between The Ears
When my decades in remission bipolar came roaring to the fore after Hurricane Katrina / The Federal Flood and my ugly divorce it was easiest just to let the demon take possessions and run the streets with Mr Hyde. He was a fun guy to be around except for the roaring hangovers on far too… Continue reading
-
His Harem
My Queen accused her borderline doddering monarch of cultivating a “harem” of admirers. This was never my intent, although I was most pleased to discover poetry could still have this effect upon women in this algorithmic age. I must confess the attraction is mutual, because I’m only emotionally and physically attracted to women who are… Continue reading
-
Back to the Island
When the days are empty of work except for what I choose–reading and writing, some chores, the garden–I take long walks in the forest arboretum not to raise my heart rate but to lower it, to follow–after the admonition from yoga–the breath of everything. Lately my thoughts roam unleashed there, thinking of natural beauty in… Continue reading
-
Sea Monkeys
Copper bracelets are back along with copper tankards and crystals and tinctures and everything just as the almanacs all quit publishing. Tin foil Silver beanies against all the negative waves, man. I take a mushroom brew against forgetting science swears by with a long list of first name testimonials. I’m waiting for the Hadacol comeback;… Continue reading
-
Venus v. the Barbarians
I’m reading Bill Lavender’s book of poems, City of God, which combines commentary on our modern world and his thoughts on Augustine’s old book. at the same time I have found a blog, Via Negative, which frequently speaks to or shares images of the ancient Venuses whichever on my own mind of late. And somehow… Continue reading
About Me
Mark Folse is a provincial diarist and aspiring minor poet from New Orleans. His past blogging adventures included the Katina/Federal Flood blog wetbankguide on blogspot.com which David Simon told NY Magazine was one of three blogs that helped inform Treme, and Toulouse Street–Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans, which once outranked the Doobie Brothers on Google Search. His work has appeared in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Trampoline, Unlikely Stories, Peauxdunque Review, LMNL Anthology, The New Delta Review, Metazen, New Laurel Review, Ellipsis, What We Know: New Orleans as Home, Please Forward, The Maple Leaf Rag IV, and A Howling in the Wires (which he co-edited).
.
Well Bottom Blues 