thats what you think, padre
i've been described in strong adjectives the past few days and my grades have suffered a slight hiccup. the preceding statements are independent and are no way reflective of each other ("it is false that if p, then q" where p refers to being described in strong terms and q is the dip in grades).
one midterm down, four to go.
sometimes, i write.
At raucous angles the walls are rolling
In a sad canyon of tenements
And neon cathedrals
In damp lanes sink.
So, sister, whisper
Those jasmine spells;
From your lips they’ll
Fall Santeria-sticky
Like sweat drips, tepid.
Now, I don’t miss the taste
Of the Mississippi’s mud:
Stagnant grit and bramble scraping
The summer’s youth prayer,
Genuflecting in a mud warm ditch
Of blackberry snakespit
And honeysuckle
Tangled among the cane.
And all the rain can’t
Wash the cabaret crust
From the old men’s final nightly gigs-
Arthritic fingers moving from a
Bummed and lit Parliament,
To the off-pitch dark keys
Of a tune played so often that
The strings stink with familiar notes.
They still kill, if you know
What you are hearing.
Spireward spireward sprawl cries
In Frenchman Street’s cacophony;
Coarse approval tugged from throats
Indistinct at The Apple Barrel,
Across shattered street and sidewalk
The Blue Nile weeps castanets,
Congo, Freddy Omar con su Banda,
Allen Ginsberg leers in earthy oils
From the wall of The Spotted Cat
Languid lips parted over the island
Of brass in a sea of stomping feet and
Imported beer bottles, an angry
Young tenor man asserts his sax
In the shadow of Café Brasil
To staccato claps and whistles
“He blew that, man!” and nods
And agreement of the elders
Who can still recall the vitality
In their fingers, dexterous as
Dexter Gordon, in the birth of the cool
Blue notes, before the delta drowned them,
Left them bent and shuffling among the
Stars, the bits of splintered bone
Gleaming in a solipsistic tar pit.
It’s too much.
I run like Slim Greer
Out and up Decatur
Crosses St.Phillip (I don’t
Piss on streets named for saints)
Crosses Rampart crosses
Canal and there the neutral ground
Grips the street car before it
Click, click, clicks me home.
The river rolls
her.
She’s my
mother.
She’s my cradle
grave.
She’s indescribable
and
My fingers stick just
trying.
i don't want to go home next friday. y'all will be in school and/or working and i'll be left to split my time between books and roaming the marshes with an air rifle and a cane pole by myself. well, and we'll probably get drunk. or something. and by something i mean anything. anything where i don't have to be around people. who make my head hurt. and destroy my faith in humanity.
you know, the general population of the 504 area code.
one midterm down, four to go.
sometimes, i write.
At raucous angles the walls are rolling
In a sad canyon of tenements
And neon cathedrals
In damp lanes sink.
So, sister, whisper
Those jasmine spells;
From your lips they’ll
Fall Santeria-sticky
Like sweat drips, tepid.
Now, I don’t miss the taste
Of the Mississippi’s mud:
Stagnant grit and bramble scraping
The summer’s youth prayer,
Genuflecting in a mud warm ditch
Of blackberry snakespit
And honeysuckle
Tangled among the cane.
And all the rain can’t
Wash the cabaret crust
From the old men’s final nightly gigs-
Arthritic fingers moving from a
Bummed and lit Parliament,
To the off-pitch dark keys
Of a tune played so often that
The strings stink with familiar notes.
They still kill, if you know
What you are hearing.
Spireward spireward sprawl cries
In Frenchman Street’s cacophony;
Coarse approval tugged from throats
Indistinct at The Apple Barrel,
Across shattered street and sidewalk
The Blue Nile weeps castanets,
Congo, Freddy Omar con su Banda,
Allen Ginsberg leers in earthy oils
From the wall of The Spotted Cat
Languid lips parted over the island
Of brass in a sea of stomping feet and
Imported beer bottles, an angry
Young tenor man asserts his sax
In the shadow of Café Brasil
To staccato claps and whistles
“He blew that, man!” and nods
And agreement of the elders
Who can still recall the vitality
In their fingers, dexterous as
Dexter Gordon, in the birth of the cool
Blue notes, before the delta drowned them,
Left them bent and shuffling among the
Stars, the bits of splintered bone
Gleaming in a solipsistic tar pit.
It’s too much.
I run like Slim Greer
Out and up Decatur
Crosses St.Phillip (I don’t
Piss on streets named for saints)
Crosses Rampart crosses
Canal and there the neutral ground
Grips the street car before it
Click, click, clicks me home.
The river rolls
her.
She’s my
mother.
She’s my cradle
grave.
She’s indescribable
and
My fingers stick just
trying.
i don't want to go home next friday. y'all will be in school and/or working and i'll be left to split my time between books and roaming the marshes with an air rifle and a cane pole by myself. well, and we'll probably get drunk. or something. and by something i mean anything. anything where i don't have to be around people. who make my head hurt. and destroy my faith in humanity.
you know, the general population of the 504 area code.