New Orleans
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They Lifted Me Up
Lee Meitzen Grue when she came up after open mike at the Gold Mine and suggested a journal for the poem I’d just read and later solicited a poem for New Laurel Review. Darrel Borque, before a large crowd as he handed on the state laureate ‘s crown to his successor, when he said, So… Continue reading
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The Surrender of New Orleans
The rode in our Mardi Gras Parades: ICE, La Migra, in an armoured car labeled Police (they are not; they can’t arrest anyone without a judicial warrant), in forest camo and tactical vests throwing beads and bobbing their heads on the 1 and 3 to the adjacent band. They rode through a city that would… Continue reading
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Gods and Monsters
The gods were always monstrous. Ovid told us so. The Hebrew Bible is a nightmare for the less elect. The Great Men of history were always clay, hollow idols filled with iniquity. As the old gods drifted out of focus we raised up new idols on mythic screens with headline testaments. We hymned the chosen… Continue reading
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Struck numb
Struck numbin the new yearby fresh horrors.The old yearscythes throughthe new, bodiesscattered likefirework wrappers.A year bornin blood and terrorwith politicianscrawling overthe mangled carcassfor the cameras. Monster truckzero to 60in four secondssilent electricengine twistscelebrationinnocentssheet metalinto horror.Does it matterwhich flagor religionthis broken mandeclared his banner? Each newhorror inspiresa lone Hero(he thinks)ready trainedto kill the Othermore horrificallyto honor… Continue reading
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Washed Away
Jimmy Reiss, a prominent local businessman and then-head of the (New Orleans) Business Council, told the Wall Street Journal that the city would come back in “a completely different way: demographically, geographically, and politically”, or he and other white civic leaders would not return. The Bricks laid carefully byCreole craftsmen demolished,replaced with mock historicalstick and… 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, 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 