-
My Neighbors
The neighbor I want is the youngLatino couple who lived next doorto us on Toulouse Street almost20 years ago. The young man cameout and offered to change my tire.I said I’m not that old, I can do it.He came back with two Modelos and sat with me until I was done, ICE can Fuck right… Continue reading
-
Down to the Bottom of Things with Horselover Fat
THE MACHINERY OF divorce chewed Fat up into a single man, freeing him to go forth and abolish himself. He could hardly wait.— PKD, VALIS Rereading VALIS by Phillip K. Dick I find I identify entirely too much with Horselover Fat. The trippy, cheap Mexican Seventies. The attempts at success (brief but it paid for… Continue reading
-
The Android Cried Me A River
I wrote this while rereading the Valis before I went to an art show opening of works dedicated to celebrate the anniversary of the 79th occasion of the birth of Philip K Dick The Android Cried Me a RiverOn the occasion of the 97thanniversary of the birth of Phillip K. DickTake heart, the AI chatbot… Continue reading
-
Stop Reading Berryman’s Sonnets, Dammit
(23) If you don’t have laugh lines and crows feetthe forehead crinkles of surprise and delighthave you even lived enough? A roundsoft tummy to lay my head in bed?Hell yes. What would we even talkabout otherwise? You’re onlyas old as I feel you are. If that’smale gazy you have my entire attention. I’m balding gray,… Continue reading
-
Out of a Canon
without a net… This was originally written in verse as an appendix to a resignation letter to the MFA program I’ve dropped out of mostly because I can’t afford it but also because of subtle but pervasive age incrimination An ancient whale washed up on Lakeshore Drive with barnacles as old as the the University’s… Continue reading
-
Not A Children’s Book
I wonder how a book of adult themed poems in the style of children’s books would sell? if it needs some appropriate illustrations. Definitely NOT a children’s poem there is a thing inside my head it wakes me up when I’m in bed imagine squirrels on a wheel frantically spinning with a squeal and I’ll… Continue reading
-
A Limited Number of Miracles
This poem is inspired by Jonathan Penton’s excellent book A Limited Number of Miracles from Lavender Ink (2025), in which each poem is inspired by a piece in the Bestoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art. It’s not just that fhey took Hercules down in front and moved him to the sculpture… Continue reading
-
His Raptures
so many,I had not thought death had undone so many. — T.S. Eliot, “The Wasteland” Not death but that fine madness, though so many ended their own lives: John Berryman, Anne Sexton, Delmore Schwartz. I have lied about suicidal ideation to psych although that has mostly been a creative excersise. Have you ever thought: stop… 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 