Here are a few poems inspired by my time in New Orleans:
Pelican
Pelican watches sisters and brothers wash up. It knew waters like blue skies. Lost flocks linger in his sad eyes. Sisters and brothers washed up. Is this the way we live, spreading wings, no way to fly? Is this the way we die? It knew, waters like blue skies Pontchartrain and the Bayou grass, rocks and sand, sheen upon bay and land. Lost flocks linger in sad eyes, another memory of what was, nature tossed aside like swill. Pelican keeps vigil.
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Spanish Moss
The Spanish moss still hangs from the old cypress trees; a forgotten friend draped across the arms of the forest. From the old cypress trees I climbed barefoot and boyish, I beheld and ruled my kingdom until evening’s fog rolled in. A forgotten friend draped in the imaginative finery of a king my mirror shows as I remember Louisiana. Across arms of the forest I once spread like fire and fear. Now I sit with memories of Spanish moss and you
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23 September News Storeom
I wonder if I shall ever love again without thinking the lady must not be Named or take after a hellish storm. Down in the Gulf, Rita angrily churns. Maximum sustained winds of 135 mph and a 20-foot storm surge. How many more? How many more? In New Orleans The hell that was the Ninth Ward loses another levee. Three weeks after Katrina. Water, more glorious, God given water. How high's the water Papa? waist-deep and rising... A bus carrying elderly evacuees Catches fire on a crowded, stalled highway. Cruel irony. Life supporting oxygen tanks burn so well. How many more? How many more? 2 million residents must evacuate. A crazy twist, highways out of Houston, can't accommodate a million cars. Miles and tens of miles of gridlock. Once again the National Guard is providing relief. This time the other life giving/taking liquid gasoline. On Friday, Louisiana's death toll from Hurricane Katrina rose to 841. How many more? How many more?
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Yesterday’s Angel
The most beautiful part of a mostly beautiful city, is kept behind wrought iron gates, with mini highways traversing throughout, surrounded by well tended lawns. The city that knows how to party, knows how to honor three centuries of dead. "Down here we bury bodies above ground." A chill travels the length of my spine as I look around at the beautiful catacombs. Mansions of granite or polished marble built for housing the corpses of New Orleans. Yesterday's angel slowly winged above Adams Street Cemetery as Monica gave me yet another tour of her beautiful city. We look out of place among dark suited mourners and the jazz band playing Amazing Grace, with our Green Day shirts and punk rock hair. You are only as different as you want to be in New Orleans. When I die, if there is enough corpse to prepare, I am not sure I want to be surrounded by rocks and sealed with my name on a bright plaque for tourists to photograph, stand, pose and point to file as a memory next to bright beads. I am pretty sure when what I am now is no more you can throw me in Lake Pontchartrain in the dark and rain.
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Worse For Wear
I bought a pair of boots in '92. Simple black leather, steel spur holders sewn on the sides. The best 99 dollars I ever spent. I call them 760's, 7 dollars and 60 cents a year if you do the math. Worn leather, broken in. Run down at the heel. North Dakota, Maine, Las Vegas, New Orleans, New Mexico. California, to the hell of Death Valley, and they always carried me back. Covering my feet in rain, sliding me across the ice, away from a rocky marriage. Last time I saw the 760's they were in the corner of a lover's room, not kicked off, not thrown, place with care with an address tag tied to the spur holder. A bootery to patch holes too big for duct tape. At a house in New Orleans my boots waited, while residents evacuated, and the water broke in. It didn't know their history, just that they were in the way.
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