madness
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Holiday in Cyclothemia
Informally known as “BiPolar III” it is that disorder’s slightly less demented cousin and counts as “in remission.” April 31is International Surrealist Poetry Day!Celebrate with your favorite elephantsycophant. Read them a bowl a alphabet soup omitting the vowels. Watch them writhe with excitement in South Pacific musicalmescaline color! (Gonna wash that manright out of our Continue reading
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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
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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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Spare me Lear and Hamlet
for Nancy Spare me Lear and Hamlet.The height and depth of madnessmeet together in The Tenantwho drags their battered bodyup the twisted stairs and backto that window to plunge again. Continue reading
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Devil’s Beggartick
Several months under black contractor plastic to blank the slate upon which to draw a garden which instead draws the persistent Virginia creeper from next door, spreading its subterranean tendrils under the new laid mulch, taunting the gardener into contemplating the Round Up for poison ivy because you can’t buy Agent Orange at Lowe’s and Continue reading
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THIS SPECIES OF MADNESS
THIS SPECIESOF MADNESS This species of madnessWhich isn’t just talentGleams in the dark reachesOf my thinking self Without bringing me happiness.There is always, in the city,Clear or cloudy skies, but in meI don’t know what there is. —Fernandi Pessoa 6 OCTOBER 1926 Continue reading
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AWAKE
Brain: WE’RE UP! Body: What? No. We’re exhausted. Brain: There’s a war on, soldier. Rise and shine. Body: [Looks at elapsed time on CPAP.] We’ve only had six hours sleep. Deeply, physically exhausted. Can’t stop yawning.. Brain: We have to write this down. Body: [Deep, jaw-cracking yawn. Another.] Brain: RFK, Jr. wants to put people Continue reading
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The Stars! The Stars!
It is possible that these great geniuses are only madmen, and that one must be mad oneself to have boundless faith in them and a boundless admiration for them. If this is true, I should prefer my insanity to the sanity of the others. Vimcent Van Gogh 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 