cryptic envelopment
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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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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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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
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OBEY
RESIST. Continue reading
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Make the Sign of the T(esla)
As a former habitué of medically prescribed benzos and victim of annihilating atypical antipsychotics to better cope with our modern world seeing all of the ads for euphoric tonics in my feed, I recall: “The service had begun. The dedicated soma tablets were placed in the centre of the table. The loving cup of strawberry… Continue reading
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Hello, we’re glad you made it. Welcome to the Future.
Their massive machines of silicone and microfine copper wire will remember it for you wholesale: every work of human art and philosophy and every comments section and Letter to Playboy in a matrix trained to speak like a parrot. Polly wanna Bitcoin? Polly wanna synthporn? Polly wanna shitstorm? Now that you’re broken to the wire… 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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Motor Head
As a second Guinness spreads its dark blanketover a rough idling motor mind sucking fumesyou begin to understand heroin’s attractionfor artists with a similar redline turbine mindwhen Maxwell’s demon stokes the furnace boxto a dangerous boiling, release valve screaming. 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, 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 