cross posted from nov3rdclub

I posted this at the Nov. 3rd club community a day or so ago, in response to a prompt from Victor about a poem “in the moment”.

in this moment
i am trying to remember everything i know
about new orleans

and i realize i don’t know much
beyond storyville and the second line
dirty dozen and dr. john
tipitina’s and preservation hall

i know i never got there
i know i never will get there
at least not to the city
it used to be

so many cities these days smell
like their own brand of ghost
i walked past the world trade center a while ago
and that smelled dry and crusty
i bet bagdhad smells about the same

so what would you call the smell of new orleans?

in this moment
i imagine
it smells like rotting stories
untold: the men and women
who propped up the pretty legend
are drowned or scattered and we
will not know their names again

and that is how it has always smelled, i bet:
abandoned, funky, with a song in its heart:

house party on the edge of decay
all those tombs under water to stay
all those parasols and all that rain
(laissez les bon temps roulez)

and someone tell the government
that those hands smell like an accident
if you can call it that — can you call it that?
(laissez les bon temps roulez)

like i said
i don’t know very much about new orleans
but i know enough to know
a murder when i see one