poetry
-
They Themselves Have No Papers
They do not come in the nightlike the frights of childhood.In broad daylight, in masks in unmarked trucks and SUVs;without insignia, without badgeswithout the necessary legal papers–they themselves have no papers–to seize people off the streetfor being brown while employed,for speaking Spanish in public.It’s as if they launched a pogromagainst the European honey beefor daring Continue reading
-
Another Police Riot
This poem was published in Unlikely Stories Version Six, and is this sort of writing I spoke about in the last post. Another Police Riot“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of Continue reading
-
Crow Law
Sitting as an old man sometimes must as if waiting for a bus, I picked up a book I keep handy, 250 Poems A Portable Anthology, which I let fall open to pick me a poem and found a new favorite Crow poem. CROW LAW Linda Hogan p. 1993*========================The temple where crow worshipswalks forward in Continue reading
-
Spare me Lear and Hamlet
for Nancy Spare me Lear and Hamlet.The height and depth of madnessmeet together in The Tenantwho drags their battered bodyup the twisted stairs and backto that window to plunge again. Continue reading
-
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside youAre not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,Must ask permission to know it and be known.The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,I have made this place around you.If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.No two Continue reading
-
The Sunsetting
The Sunsetting “Good night, and good luck” — Edward R. Murrow.Burning red and orangeare the colors of sunsetand the President issunsetting on television.Welcome to the twilightof the United States.Our monuments are giltin Krylon metallic goldand the Capitol has become an unbarred madhouse.Visit the New and ImprovedSmithsonian museumsfull of Beautifulest American Truth in the fashion of Continue reading
-
Shatter Complacency
“Poetry should be written so that if you throw a poem at the window, the glass will shatter.” – Daniil Kharms, 1930 Continue reading
-
Look Away, Look Away
New Orleans would come back in “a completely different way: demographically, geographically, and politically” or he and other white civic leaders would not return. –Jimmy Reiss, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 2005The Bricks laid carefully byCreole craftsmen demolished,replaced with mock historicalstick & Tyvek by Latino refugees. Less than halfas many homes built to makethe Federal Flood 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).
.
Well Bottom Blues 