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One World, Two Realms, Four Days
After Gary Snyder On the porch of a cottage on a pond by Coulée Ditader just above Bayou Teche St. Martin Parish, Louisiana 13 February 2026 8:00 a.m. I overslept the quiet alarmI set to not disturb PatriceIt’s a gray morning anywayso what if sunrise slinked pastIf I I had been awake gone in just now… 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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The Spirit of the Mask
Something I wrote 17 years ago for sadly departed friend Victoria Slind-Flor, formerly of New Orleans, for the guests of a Carnival Ball in miniature she was hosting in Oakland, CA, To the Honored Members and Guests of the Krewe of Baubo and Ame no Uzume: When one is called to Carnival, the first question… 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 