poetry
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Weight of Witness
I DON’T KNOW HOW MANYSOULS I HAVEFernando Pessoa I don’t know how many souls I have.I’ve changed at every moment.I always feel self-estranged.I’ve never seen or found myself.From being so much, I have only soul.A man who has soul has no calm.A man who sees is just what he sees.A man who feels is not… Continue reading
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Agoraphonia
Trying to read Bernadette Mayer’s Agoraphobia over lunch in a crowded food court is like a holiday in schizophrenia. The sentences run like rivulets after a wave back into the ocean of voices echoing off the walls & I can no more find the sense of it than I can explain the mathematics of fractals… Continue reading
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I Refuse
“To your mad world, one answer: I refuse.” — Marina Tsvetaeva Continue reading
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Ask me, Basho said, If I care
I called Basho. He confirmed. He was the one who said, “The journey itself is home.” I told him the critics in my department Think words like “journey” are empty cliches. “Ask me,” Basho said, “If I care.” —Luis Urrea, “Babylonian Alphabets: A Poet’s Notebook Continue reading
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How do you love this world?
How do you love this world? How do you, after you’ve ingested all its cruel lessons, all the poison and disappointment and rage and betrayal of it? Is it accomplished through religion? Do you pray without ceasing? The oak tree is always praying. But how do you love this life? How do you honor this… Continue reading
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Mary Oliver
To: The Algorithms Re: Mary Oliver Yes I love poetry and Mary Oliver writes lovely poems but constantly popping her up on my timeline is like suggesting I practice relaxation breathing in the kitchen as I make a cup of tea while the house is on fire. Continue reading
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Jump
Don’t move left or right. Don’t creep like a pawn. Move like Knight rampant. Move like a Queen. Continue reading
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A poem is only non-violent
A poem is only non-violentif its edge is dull. No roseshere at the razor wire frontierof a future built with bones.There are no butterflies on the wire; your lover’spastoral visa is cancelledno dreamscapes; only nightmares.You can run to the lyric gardenbut you can’t hide. They’ll comefor the lovers and poetssure as Winston Smith. Your MasterCard… Continue reading
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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 morality.” ― James Baldwin, The NYPD vomited out of armored trucks black as the horses of Lorca’s Guardia Civil: brutality of batons, tear gas … Continue reading
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Vulture Heavy
I am vulture-heavy. My stories are caskets filled with black feathers, But the dead, in their vast merriment, egg me on. Write the motherfucking poem. See why I love them? — “I am vulture heavy”, Diane Seuss I am capable of light verse but it’s not my natural tendency. I’ve been diagnosed variously with adhd,… 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 