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Promiscuously Autobiographical
“I’m promiscuously autobiographical, but it’s never gotten me into trouble.” Samuel R. Delaney, interviewed by The New Yorker Continue reading
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America’s funeral procession
America’s funeral procession runs through New Orleansto the sea: the residual dust of busted Missouri sod,limbs and whole trees, the carcasses of errant livestock,twinkly drink cans, forever bottles, empty chemical drums,raw and sanitized sewage, pesticide and fertilizer,the latter fueling algae blooms which suck all oxygenfrom the Gulf waters, producing vast dead zones.The reject and the… Continue reading
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Happy Smiling People Writing Poems
I am trying to write a happy poem.Something Mary Oliverish withlove and epiphanies and flowers and butterflies landing on my hand and—all that shit.My first attempt came out: Happy Smiling PeopleHolding Guns.That’s not it.You can’t say you hate Mary Oliver.That would be like saying you hatethe Easter Bunny.She is certainly talented andher poems are very… Continue reading
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Heron Ever After, Amen
Remembering Wendell Berry When I am done withlife’s noisy city street lampsits stoplights and obligationsits rectangular calendarits nervous tic of clocklet me enter at lastinto water, into fish, into featherinto root, into branch, into leafinto the ever elderberryLet my children find mein the regularly scheduledlate afternoon heavenof frog song at sunsetwith angel egretsand devil anhinga… Continue reading
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Couturie Forest, Aug. 29th
Windfall litter, branch and twig, brutally broken trunkslast month’s vast storm fall of leaves in summer, hiddenswallowed by the season’s spreading, persistent greentendrils rising not from but out of the dead, reachingtoward heaven, bearing flowers, the promise of seeds Continue reading
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August Elderberries
August elderberriesengorged with summer begging to be plucked Continue reading
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Game Over
If the AI revolution brings about an age of abundance, as Elon Musk has begun to suggest lest we bring out the guillotine, and no one goes hungry or burns with avarice; if the computers not only cure all our diseases and extend our lives but solve every puzzling mathematical theorem and scientific mystery for… Continue reading
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No Time to Reminisce
Yellowing awards, that underdog political win, corporate accolades, that fat Bank bonus that went into a kitchen in the house sold after the divorce. Two practically perfect children who don’t call often enough. A few old friendships almost our same age. It’s been quite a run but I’m not done. At the edge of decrepitude… Continue reading
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Sea of Insomnia
I strap on the apparatus so I can breathpreparing for my descent into dreamfrom which I come up sputtering regardlessout of the twisting currents of the unconsciousthere is treasure somewhere in the wreckageof memory, today and childhood scatteredand then confusingly reassembled—when you laughed and when you trembledin anger or delight, all tossed togetheron the bottom… Continue reading
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This I Believe
Someone on the Threads poetry forum asked: I’m a poet. I write poetry. But still… I look at some ppls writing and just cringe. Like… you don’t actually believe that do you? You just put some words together that sounded nice, right? Does it even mean anything? Is this just me? And I answered: The… 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).
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Well Bottom Blues 