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DON’T BLINK
I was doing well in remission with minimal meds until the current circus of the damned rolled over town. I had my own imps to deal with they were mostly under control doing very well thanks for voting for hell. Continue reading
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Shinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing)
Ten years ago, just as medication was beginning to rein in my outrageous and dangerous bipolar mania, I quit a job that almost broke me and fled into the park. Continue reading
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Blesséd Are the Bipolar
hymn to Sts. Byron, Thomas, Plath and Lowellthree solid draft poems in the last two hours so it goes for those blessed with the darkangel of hypo-mania black cousin of Duendebut not as dark as the hours of anhedonia Continue reading
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Crow Cousins
The crows come first alone or a pair but quickly gather in dozens when I cast handfuls of cheap cat food. I have a spot walk to the front of the park through the old growth live oaks where I feed them, beneath to especially large trees where the ground is mostly bare from the… Continue reading
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I’m Auto-Tuned Out
I’m Auto-Tuned Out I have a voice that is not auto-tunedto the popular. Stanzas: what’s upwith that? And rhyme sometimes.Blame that Bob Dylan character,and Ian Anderson. And, oh, all those Norton Anthologies, starting us onVol. 1 so young and impressionable.I can carry a note but my ear is tunedto the page, however I might humas… Continue reading
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Night Train to Lorca
There are moments I record here and moments I do not. Moments of terror or desire or shallow despair at the worthlessness of this endeavor. Why must I write? Because not to is to be a tourist.— Bill Lavender, “Tui” I got lost after leaving the Alhambra and stopped for lunch. On the way I… Continue reading
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Another Boston Massacre
All they wanted was a free education and the respect their fathers hadfor serving. They remembered pictures of the Guard rescuing frightened people from a flood. Like most people they did not follow the news except for scores, but saw the terrorizing crime stories out of the city which editors always pushed for clicks. They… Continue reading
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Not Drunk Unless
Not drunk unless on leafbreath and godswink, my path doesn’t stagger; it wanders with care, following some loose rules about how I pass by, under the boughs of and around certain trees, usually widdershins, compassing the roots and boles and others bowing for a benediction where the arch of branches buttress the sky. The Crow… Continue reading
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No to inhumanism and post-humanism
Answer to Robison JeffersTo keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted and not wish for evil; and not be duped By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams willnot be fulfilled. – “The Answer” Robinson Jeffers A delineated and revised poem. Yes and yes and yes and yes but no, not duped… Continue reading
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A Turing Test
Interrogator: Is there a window in the room where you are? A: No. B: No. Interrogator: Is it raining outside? A: Yes. B: I think so. Interrogator: Can you hear the rain on the roof? A: No. B: Yes, now that you mentioned it. 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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