new orleans of my dreams/alternate version 2

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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

new orleans of my dreams/ draft one



New Orleans of my dreams/ alternate version 2


fiction
edward w pritchard


Life and death stand nose to nose in New Orleans; sometimes back to back.

Below sea level; you may wake part of the lake.
Water is sweet when it overflows; salty waves or Pontchartrain brine.

Liquor softens sorrows at the death of friends
and music soothes, swaying from the cemetery back.

Women lose inhibitions Saturday nights,
then holy hymns Sunday mornings sing.
Food too, spicy but sweet;
neighbors close, all discrete.

Morning start early with choices and plans,
afternoons a warm rain soaks our tired souls,
late nights end with drifting jazz,
stars are low in the sky,
and heat inundates the quarter.
 
One night in the quarter
is worth a thousand days anywhere else.
Bury me beneath sea level,
until rising waters carry me away.
end