poetry
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All Those Antecedent Predecessions
It is the imposing of all those antecedent predecessions, the precessions of me, the generation of those facts which are my words. It is coming from all that I no longer am yet am, the slow western motion of more than I am.— Charles Olson, Maximus to Gloucester, “Letter 27” Continue reading
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The Man Who Knew Godot
Long ago when I first started as an undergraduate I was at a bar speaking to an old man and told him I was an English major and he asked me to recite a poem. I couldn’t. Maybe I could manage Poe’s The Bells for I had that by heart once. Memorizing poetry was a Continue reading
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my mind is a mobile
my mind is a mobile, by turns Calder or crib, measuring the Brownian motion of a furiously idle mind Continue reading
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You have the blood of a poet
“You have the blood of a poet. You have that and always will. You show, in middle of savage things (that I like), the gentleness of your heart, that is so full of pain and light.” Federico García Lorca, from a letter to Miguel Hernández wr. c. April 1933 Continue reading
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They Lifted Me Up
Lee Meitzen Grue when she came up after open mike at the Gold Mine and suggested a journal for the poem I’d just read and later solicited a poem for New Laurel Review. Darrel Borque, before a large crowd as he handed on the state laureate ‘s crown to his successor, when he said, So Continue reading
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We’re really beyond that
One woman wrote, “I am afraid that what I want to say will not be important enough.”on reading this statement, another student remarked: “You should drop that part. we’re really beyond that.” “Notes re: Echo,” Sept. 8, strophe 3Kathleen Fraser The books I brought to the beach: Epic Postmodernism an Anthology of Contemporary Innovative Poetries. Continue reading
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Sweet Ophelia
The dreadful drowned all float face down except for sweet Ophelia –Mark Folse Continue reading
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This Machine Kills Fascists
I—just—can’t anymore. I’m falling apart. The world is falling apart. I just want to fall into your arms and sleep. But this is not some stupid, self-induced hangover. This is a house fire in a hurricane in a pandemic. With zombies. Fast zombies. Why is double-tap funny in a zombie moviebut you have a lot Continue reading
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NUTS*
It’s over.The American Experiment.It’s over. The results are in.It failed.Where do we go now?Overseas or into the streets? I don’t want another country.I want America back.Country of muskets. Country of tommy guns.Country of Saratoga. Country of Gettysburg.Country of Bastogne. Country of Iwo Jima.Country of Detroit 67. Country of Chicago 68 Burn, Baby. Burn. We cheered Continue reading
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I Want A Cigarette So Bad
I want a cigarette so bad my hand trembles at the thought of the flare of the match. Fire. Smoke. Calm as ancient as frankincense, smoke rising up to the heavens. I want a steady hand so bad my stomach clenches at the thought of the meds paych’s pill nurses would push to calm my craving 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 