nature
-
People and a Heron
Sitting with this one from Poem-A-Day, pondering the end. I do admire the nature poetry of this Poundishly cantankerous but less twisted man, who did not wish evil on the world but would welcome modern society’s collapse and Nature’s Reconquista, especially if he could watch from the stone tower of Tor House. People and a… Continue reading
-
Surrender
I was always troubled by the title of the beautiful John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana collaboration Love Devotion Surrender. Surrender was never an appealing option for me. I burn with a defiant Promethean fire only death will extinguish. And yet as I grow older, surrender calls me: not to the feet of the tin idol… Continue reading
-
Heron Ever After, Amen
Remembering Wendell Berry When I am done withlife’s noisy city street lampsits stoplights and obligationsits rectangular calendarits nervous tic of clocklet me enter at lastinto water, into fish, into featherinto root, into branch, into leafinto the ever elderberryLet my children find mein the regularly scheduledlate afternoon heavenof frog song at sunsetwith angel egretsand devil anhinga… Continue reading
-
August Elderberries
August elderberriesengorged with summer begging to be plucked Continue reading
-
Game Over
If the AI revolution brings about an age of abundance, as Elon Musk has begun to suggest lest we bring out the guillotine, and no one goes hungry or burns with avarice; if the computers not only cure all our diseases and extend our lives but solve every puzzling mathematical theorem and scientific mystery for… Continue reading
-
Oh! That Holy Ghost!
They’re dead to me, the judgemental ones—Bad tempered sky daddy and even his gentle sonif He will one day come back riding Wrath likea fifth horse of the Rome-gone-wrong apocalypse.But Oh! That Holy Ghost!She comes to me on colorful wings, speaking in the tongues of susurration, of bird song and call.And I am her evangelist,… Continue reading
-
Portal
Some days the forest is not far enough. I can still hear the cars speeding past just outside the gate and the distant rumble of the interstate that bisects the park. It is too close to what troubles, to what waits later, and chances are I have a list of things to do on the… Continue reading
-
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
-
Not a Demon-Haunted World
Not a demon-haunted worldof the astronomer’s warningbut one spirit informed,knowing we are the conscious universelooking at ourselvesin the mystery of a treeunmediated by machines 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).
.
Well Bottom Blues 