poetry
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The Rhythm of Human History
My comment on this Substack post: https://open.substack.com/pub/poeticknowledge/p/an-introduction-to-the-rhythm-of?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3ibxf As a poet of 68 years I find that I and many of my contemporaries use accentual lines of a certain number of beats without regard to syllable count. We were all schooled in both canonical English verse and the free verse that emerged in the 20th century.… Continue reading
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A Factory of Reinvention
The first time Sam (her chosen name)went down to the riverI stayed on the stepstipped a musicianfor St. James Infirmarywhile her husband Davescattered Rebecca(her given name)into the Mississippi. New Orleansis a factoryof reinvention.Come as you are.Be who you wish.Leave by the river. I only called herby her pen name–rather her personna–in the boisterous bohemia of… Continue reading
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We will conquer the stars
O. hearing of Elon Musk’s idea to move AI data centers into space with huge solar arrays. We will conquer the starsby obliteration So many satellitesto feed the porn and propagandaconjured from ourselves by orbital AIthe stolen works of old mankindWe will struggle to find the full moonWe will name new constellationswith what little human… Continue reading
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Happy Smiling People
Happy Smiling People Writing PoemsI am trying to write a happy poem.Something Mary Oliverish withlove and epiphanies and rainbows 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… Continue reading
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Meditations in an Emergency
I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love. — Frank O’Hara, “Meditations in an Emergency” #36 from Stop Reading Berryman’s Sonnets, Dammit I am all men. I’m torn betweenthe delicate pleasure of soft companyand my second adolescence’s burning needfor soft skin, eyes turned vertical afterand a different sort of… Continue reading
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Morning is Broken
is the No. 1 hymn in this hellwhere the news scrolls bylike sandpaper on the soul.Wars and rumors of warearthquakes, snakes andprivate aeroplanes.You should be afraidof the one-sided (so far)civil war against dissent.The only way out is througha cordon of soulless thugsbent on ending the non-compliant, to paint a newAmerican Dream in bloodfor the White… Continue reading
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The Murdered Poet
After Lorcaand Neruda and some poemthat scrolled away on InstagramFor Renee Nicole GoodThe sun was orange, a burning tambourinewhen they gunned the poet Lorca downfar from Sacramonte. They could not killduende, that tremor in the earth beneath their feetsongs older than the Sultans or the Reconquista.His soul took flight like torn paper leaves, acrossall borders,… Continue reading
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Hurray for the Red, White and True
On the occasion of Hitler’s attack on PolandTrump’s attack on Caracas and kidnappingof another country’s president and first ladyThe blue pills kill the back pain spasms from yogabut I’m awake. The ache moves from musclesinto the morning news like cancer run amok.We’re not sorry it’s spread to the mind andwhat we sometimes call the heart… Continue reading
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I have fallen out of love with Barbie
I have fallen out of love with Barbie the silicone injection bullet breasts the vacant expression, the lifeless eyes. I have fallen out of love with the heroinchic, anorexic stick of marketing models the vacant expression, the lifeless eyes. I have fallen out of love with the bosomydisproportionate selected by publishers of my youth as… Continue reading
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It’s not enough to fall in love
It’s not enough to fall in love. You must learnto swim in it: in smooth and in rough, withor against the world’s current, in warm andin cold, in wind and in rain, in the Sun andunder the Moon, swim together untilyou reach the far side. 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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