i wish i was in new orleans

[firsty]

i've taken long walks
against the wind
took many long pulls
of the pipe
sat on the riverbanks
throwing rocks to the dreamgods
rode on the trolley
muttered in churches
wishing for voodoo
listened to music
washboard scratching
kids tapdancing
smack the streets
leaned out of windows
waiting for masks
took alligator bites
blistered eardrums
on saturday nites
the truest music in the world -
wrung out by pain
and beauty
knowledge
took a morning stroll
around hosed down sidewalks
wishing for voodoo
everything dries
spells or no spells,
whispered the old witch
as she touched my arm
me:
wishing for voodoo

[mnaz]

It will dry. But will it ever be the same?

The truest music, wrung out of pain...
but is this pain too profound?
Is it a fatal pain?

[stilltrucking]

oh yes it will be fine, as long as you are a white boy

firsty I liked the poem, it made me feel something, but now i realize i didn't get it at all.

[diesel dyke]

firsty i been thinking about deleting my dead nigger in new orleans post and putting it here. I did not get what manz got out of the poem, but I probably did not get it either. I don't know what to say to people that compliment me on something I scribbled and yet they don't seem to get it. But what does that matter. I shine it on.

To me the poem had a face on it, where is she now, the old witch, was she black? I saw dead bodies.

Mnaz on the third day of the Rape Of Bagdhad, when the musems were looted, my heart sank. But then came the dead bodies and the lost of a prescious instrument maybe five thousand years old seemed trivial. So I wrote the dead nigger poem. Watching some thunderheads come together today I wished I could have seen what was happening with your eyes. I forgot, you are not a white boy either. I hope those smokey old bars survive too. But hard to think about that. my desert rose had an orthodox funeral, she had to buried before the sunset again. Seemed so southern racists I was stunned. Some myth I believed in about racial equality. Cecil was right again. I can only think of three men here who I would not tell go shit in their hat, cecil, clay and you. If I ever said it I would dam sure use a