poetry
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Dead Zone
My butterfly plants draw only waspsThe mosquito truck passes (again)incidentally erasing the dragonfliesLawns around are perfectharlequin green rectanglesChildren search in vain for a dandelion to make a wishfor butterflies & dragonflies Continue reading
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Poète Maudit
I wish to claim the designation poète maudit not as Verlaine first meant, the edgy Madness of Baudelaire and Rimbaud. I know what poète maudit looks like. Thaddeus Comti was my friend. I claim it as one possessed by poetry, mounted as by a loa. Is this symptomatic or bipolar disorder as some believe, or… Continue reading
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Crouching Venus

The fallen strand of her coiffed hairdeliberate imperfection excuseperhaps to reach to fix it in subtle invitation not modern voluptuoussmall breasts but not childlike oversoft rolls of flesh a grown womandesire incarnate in a body that’s knownfeast’s pleasure and the aftermathof lust stretched and shaped intoan accessible goddess surprisedbut not alarmed by your arrivalThis is… Continue reading
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Return to Scout Island

Today was the first time I set foot on Scout Island in City Park since the 1960s. I had some unpleasant childhood experiences there: the Cub Scout den camp out when I burned myself on the Coleman lantern and my father and Uncle decided to treat it by pouring cold Dixie beer onto it, and… Continue reading
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Prozac-Tinted Glasses
Yes I feel unwell withoutmy Prozac-tinted glasseseverything is sharperthe news more abhorrent the horrors closerthe usual annoyanceslike wire-traps snapI take the persistentmockingbird personallyeverything is altered The trees in my daily forest escape differentiatethe greens unfold in a Pantone kaleidoscope birdsong susurrationripples in sunlighteverything everythingimmersionnot aversionlearning to manage the amplificationunbound my eyes exploreall the cinematic angleseverything… 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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