poetry
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Struck numb
Struck numbin the new yearby fresh horrors.The old yearscythes throughthe new, bodiesscattered likefirework wrappers.A year bornin blood and terrorwith politicianscrawling overthe mangled carcassfor the cameras. Monster truckzero to 60in four secondssilent electricengine twistscelebrationinnocentssheet metalinto horror.Does it matterwhich flagor religionthis broken mandeclared his banner? Each newhorror inspiresa lone Hero(he thinks)ready trainedto kill the Othermore horrificallyto honor… Continue reading
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Washed Away
Jimmy Reiss, a prominent local businessman and then-head of the (New Orleans) Business Council, told the Wall Street Journal that the city would come back in “a completely different way: demographically, geographically, and politically”, or he and other white civic leaders would not return. The Bricks laid carefully byCreole craftsmen demolished,replaced with mock historicalstick and… Continue reading
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We are here to laugh at the odds
“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stonewritten. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own… Continue reading
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Why Not A Dryad?
Why a water nymphin this featured fountainand not a dryad in this colonnade of bearded oaks old as Moses?There are pools in the wood.Just ask Acteaon. Continue reading
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Museum of the Broken Heart
Apologies to Andy YoungYour poems. of course, are brilliantMy star, right now, is not Trying to read another’s grief fine lines on dull paper through the fog the smoke of a nation in flames I think instead I’ll gather up all my Everett Maddox to read by the sports TV light at the bar around… Continue reading
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The Agency of Chaos
A. I would not be here if I had not started my medication. B. I would not be here if I hadn’t stopped my medication. Both things are true. (Pages of examples, good and bad.) Continue reading
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Don’t Look Away
“To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.” ~ Akira Kurosawa Most of the visual artists I know are attuned to beauty. The innocence of childhood very deep inside will always be fascinated by a flower. The market has something to say about this. Tourists browsing Jackson Square do not come here for… Continue reading
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A thousand tambourines of crystal
“If you ask me why I wrote ‘A thousand tambourines of crystal, wounded the light of daybreak’ I will tell you that I saw them in the hands of trees and angels, but I cannot say more: I cannot explain their meaning. And that is how it should be. Through poetry a man more quickly… Continue reading
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Calf Foot Blues
Daube marrowboiling in thispot black, hissinggas ring hot night,a slow reduction tothe elemental inthe fan-stirredsimmer of thisgelatin evening. Originally published in The Dead Mule of Southern Literature. Continue reading
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Carry a Lantern
If poetry does not carry a lantern from house to house,if the poor do not know what it ‘means’we had better discard it!It is better that we seek immortal silence. —Mahmoud Darwish▪︎ Palestinian poet ▪︎ (Trans. by John Mikhail Asfour) 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 