fiction
edward w pritchard
Memory softens reflections creating a muted sky over the French quarter of New Orleans. Sometimes two, three, four planets line up in a circle around the full Moon and the Moon's bright light reflects in the sloshy puddles left over from the afternoon drizzle. From the terrace behind the black iron railings on the second floor of the flat you rent by the hour you can see your lost lovers face reflected in the puddles by the light of that muted Moon.
Throaty sad jazz music drifts skyward from the torch singer at the cabaret next to the famous beignet shop across the street. Like everyone in the quarter the torch singer has a past but she won't reveal her story to just anybody. When she came into town the first time as a scared teenage girl she asked a sailor to help her find the streetcar called desire; he carried her bag and helped her up the few steps onto the trolley to Elysian fields. Since then things haven't worked out so well for her and her sadness is reflected in her music.
A man in a tight white muscle tee shirt is telling his pregnant wife Stella about the Napoleonic Code as they stroll down the sidewalk one floor below your balcony. You might need to go down to cabaret to get another bucket of beer if you keep drinking at this rate. If you do go downstairs to the cabaret you will have to tip that torch singer. Only when she sings these sad songs, and only when it's a full Moon after an afternoon rain will the four planets line up in a circle around the full Moon and only then will you find your lost lovers face mutely reflected in a sloshy puddle on the street below the flat you rent by the hour in the French quarter of New Orleans.
When everything is right memory softens reflections creating a muted sky over the French quarter of New Orleans.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2011
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
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
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