poetry
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Bukowski’s Bluebird
Not only words in his mouth but what look like feathers, clamped tight in his teeth like an anxious gambler’s cigarette. Cat eyed and smiling at the bar, he caught beauty perched on a stool and swallowed it in one bite. Now odd notes issue from his throat. His words come out as songs. —… Continue reading
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Come out of your houses deumming
Come out of your houses drumming. All others, beware: I have discarded my smile but not my teeth. https://poets.org/poem/incantation-first-order Continue reading
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NEWS FLASH: BIDEN WITHDRAWS
Glass shatters in an instantShards marked in trails of bloodHousekeeping fled the country The men folk circle up a posseFondling oily unconcealed carryAnd their obsolete typewriters Promote the show’s last runThe Last Candidate is hoistedOn a flag-draped media scaffold The menfolk with press cardsIn the brim of grandfather’s hatIssue confusing directions Carefully chosen mob… Continue reading
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An Anhinga
Saturday walking in the park All eyes down on their phones Across the water, an anhinga I’m rather fond of this. It jettisons 17 syllables to go straight to the heart of haiku. The anhinga, if you don’t know it, is a unique and marvelous bird. A fisher without water proof feathers, it perches periodically… Continue reading
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The Bad Busker
The bad soprano busker is back rehearsing murder of a violin for the poor tourists who just want to eat beignets in peace The danse macabre of summer Sugar Plum Fairies melting in June’s heat, squawking like a collapsing accordion another Happy Birthday and then Anchors Aweigh and I wonder if come fall he’ll know… 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 