poetry of witness
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They Themselves Have No Papers
They do not come in the nightlike the frights of childhood.In broad daylight, in masks in unmarked trucks and SUVs;without insignia, without badgeswithout the necessary legal papers–they themselves have no papers–to seize people off the streetfor being brown while employed,for speaking Spanish in public.It’s as if they launched a pogromagainst the European honey beefor daring Continue reading
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Another Police Riot
This poem was published in Unlikely Stories Version Six, and is this sort of writing I spoke about in the last post. Another Police Riot“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of Continue reading
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That Bright Moment
YOU ARE TRAPPED IN THAT BRIGHT MOMENTWHERE YOU LEARNED YOUR DOOM— Samuel R. Delaney in City of a Thousand Suns In Delaney’s novella trilogy Fall of the Towers the characters must confront the mass, simultaneous discovery by an entire society that a key assumption about their lives–that there was an enemy beyond the barrier; that Continue reading
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The Sunsetting
The Sunsetting “Good night, and good luck” — Edward R. Murrow.Burning red and orangeare the colors of sunsetand the President issunsetting on television.Welcome to the twilightof the United States.Our monuments are giltin Krylon metallic goldand the Capitol has become an unbarred madhouse.Visit the New and ImprovedSmithsonian museumsfull of Beautifulest American Truth in the fashion of Continue reading
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Homily
Do we need to shine black light to illuminate the blood? Look: it’s on your hands. Continue reading
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2025
On The Centennial of Benito Mussolini’s Assumption of Dictatorial Powers in 1925 let us string piano wire like holiday tinsel and hang memorial ornaments to resistance, dangle the masked fatigue green monsters by their ankles while singing the carol of the partisan, crack poppers heard round the world and wear paper tricorn hats of Lexington Continue reading
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The Island of Doctor Jeffers
Reading the long, narrative poems in the stout Selected Poems of Robinson Jeffers takes me back to a book I read long ago: H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr Moreau. So many of his characters are monstrous deformities, half human and half animal. Not that such people don’t exist-the news today is filled with them-but Continue reading
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Conquer the Impossible
It was impossible to make it through the tragedy Without poetry. — Joy Harjo Continue reading
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Weight of Witness
I DON’T KNOW HOW MANYSOULS I HAVEFernando Pessoa I don’t know how many souls I have.I’ve changed at every moment.I always feel self-estranged.I’ve never seen or found myself.From being so much, I have only soul.A man who has soul has no calm.A man who sees is just what he sees.A man who feels is not 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 