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A thousand tambourines of crystal
“If you ask me why I wrote ‘A thousand tambourines of crystal, wounded the light of daybreak’ I will tell you that I saw them in the hands of trees and angels, but I cannot say more: I cannot explain their meaning. And that is how it should be. Through poetry a man more quickly… Continue reading
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Calf Foot Blues
Daube marrowboiling in thispot black, hissinggas ring hot night,a slow reduction tothe elemental inthe fan-stirredsimmer of thisgelatin evening. Originally published in The Dead Mule of Southern Literature. Continue reading
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Apocalypse No. 1
The government radio somewhere behind me warbles its emergency signal like tortured locusts, announcing blood rain. I have coffee and whiskey and cigarettes enough, water and canned rations aplenty. Here on the dissolving horizon of the continent, abandoned by progress, we understand how to do apocalypse properly. I ignore the robotic voice which will outlast… Continue reading
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Carry a Lantern
If poetry does not carry a lantern from house to house,if the poor do not know what it ‘means’we had better discard it!It is better that we seek immortal silence. —Mahmoud Darwish▪︎ Palestinian poet ▪︎ (Trans. by John Mikhail Asfour) Continue reading
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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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Back to the Classics
I agree we need to get back to the Classics. When confronted with the greedy children of privilege sucking up your sustenance and disrespecting your family be Odysseus. 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 