Czeslaw Mikosz
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“To find my home . . .”
To find my home in one sentence, concise, as if hammered in metal. Not to enchant anybody. Not to earn a lasting name in posterity. An unnamed need for order, for rhythm, for form, which three words are opposed to chaos and nothingness. —Czeslaw Milosz, Berkeley–Paris–Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981–1983 Which brought Wallace Stevens “The Idea of… Continue reading
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Grinding Ink
My partner and first reader/editor thinks this is a little preachy if not in fact curmudgeonly ranty. Thoughts? Grinding Ink“To whom do we tell what happened on the earth, for whom do we place everywhere huge mirrors in the hope that they will be filled up and will stay so?”—Czeslasz Milosv, “Annalena”I want to swallow… Continue reading
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Reading Myself to Death
Tie me to the chair first, honey. I’m a glutton for delicious torment. I’m reading all of Czeslaw Milosz which is not as emotionally fraught as reading through all of Louise Glück. I enjoy the change of tone, from feminine to masculine reflection, like one of those flip over bathroom mirrors. Much of Glück is… Continue reading
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Welcome, you spirits
Latin: “Sunt mihi Dei Acherontis propitii! Valeat numen triplex Jehovae! Ignis, aeris, aquae, terrae spiritus, Salvete!” Translation: “May the gods of Acheron be favorable to me! Farewell to the threefold spirit of Jehovah — the Trinity! Welcome, you spirits of fire, air, water, and earth!” —Czeslaw Miłosz’ adaptation of the invocation from Goethe’s Faust. I… Continue reading
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I have got to go fast
Three times must the wheel of blindness turn, before I look without fear at the powersleeping in my own hand…— Czeslaw Milosz, “Slow River”I am not only writing and revising furiously as I look at the hour glass and see the bottom half mostly filled, I just finished all of Glück, a hefty and intoxicating… 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, Trampoline, Unlikely Stories, Peauxdunque Review, LMNL Anthology, 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 