St. Claude x Deslonde St. New Orleans, 2012 |
21 February 2024
12 March 2020
11 June 2019
31 January 2018
29 January 2018
06 October 2017
17 September 2017
23 January 2017
20 January 2017
03 September 2016
04 October 2015
21 August 2015
"Mere Nola got me. It's the first poetry book in a very long time I read cover to cover and felt bad that it didn't go on. It's a hell of a book, memoir, diary, journal, told with perfect pitch, great ear, perfect spoken Ingles. Tremendous writer, truly, master of the new Nawrleans lit, if not a chef d'ecole."
-- Andrei Codrescu
There Is A Foot on Geary Street
It's in the Muni bay in front of Martell's Liquors at 20th Avenue; these pictures began in 1987 and end 2003. The last time I checked in 2011 it was still there, collecting its whathaveu. Nathan tries to correct me that Geary is not a Street, but a Boulevard, and a Grand one at that - its mail codes go from 94108 to 94121. But "there is a foot on Geary St." was the mutter that directed me to click my shutter the first time (after three years of notice) and this is what I mean by Language Photography...I recall my mild concern in 1997, when it was marked with orange paint as a defect to fix by a public works employee, but they never got around to repairing this impression made by a shoe cast in wet cement.
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Corners and Napkins |
in the end a pen takes to brick and flails
in the beginning, next to portions of four bricks
is a filthy paper waiting thumbnail, a napkin
chats about waiting in chairs at a reading to hear
then, turning the page a door slams
eardrum pulsing last cigaret looks
these are real corners you could encounter in the world
close at the scale of napkins, inside and out
what I have found, is a wave form
of course, lunar lighting. stubble of stucco -
I could tell you plenty about Stucco, but Corners and Napkins
is not concerned with stucco, some corners trap
some corners - we do not know
some corners we do, for they Deify light
lime says cool
orange invites lizards to cross
green on the produce sign says notice
napkin relieves, assures
napkin will take a bullet for the Chief
napkin signed verifies invention
napkin tapping at corners of mouth
now decide if to lie and emphasize
cloud billow sail
perfection can be routinely achieved in the photography of napkins
these resin coated colored 4"x6" papers are satisfying to compile
for the napkin photograph solicits its surface to write on and
i love cycles of perfection to ruin
some of these corners are severe
they are hard and promise it is a cold cruel world
corners you would not like in a prison guard
we like the corner that wanders for god
that cant, that wiggle, is ours
20 August 2015
I W N B D I T H
I W N L W T T C M N
Randy's Discipline
Teacher dictated the lyric to Randy transcribed it 25 times.
It was exhibited in 1989 at New Langton Arts in San Francisco,
"Special Collections."
From a collection of mostly handwritten papers gathered by William Passarelli
Including a distressed loose leaf by Randy with a no two letters alike handwriting:
1. I will come when I am called. I will not break dance in
the halls. I will not laugh when teacher calls my name.
2.
(x 25)
I heard, and became a colony of its refrain...
Chris Sullivan April 2009 New Orleans
17 July 2015
August 21 2010
Jack once examined my drywall work and said
- What did you do, put it on with a fork?
I'd learned some since then but it was still more irony than spatula spreading mud over a ceiling repair at K’s house that afternoon, when As The World Turns rose into my ears and grinned for a full minute one character was called “Spot you are one of the most amazing men I've ever met and you deserve..."
Scott, actually.
As to the leak in K's ceiling the short of it is I detected in the apartment above a failed bathtub drain seal that required a journeyman plumber to replace because it was a terrible fitting in a dangerous spot.
Longer, ducked through a short door to crouch into dim filthy hunched under the tips of 19th century nails 110° attic stuffed with cast iron sewing machines, a 45 inch plasma tv box, Canon windows 95 desktop computer, printers, guitars, teddy bears, old water heaters, floppy discs, clothes, stacks of circa 1960's magazines, blankets, obese bags of Mardi Gras beads, building materials, knick knacks, kitchen gadgets, souvenirs, curly corded telephones and reel to reel audio tapes.
Or, hazards to clear before tradesmen enter.
So gathered & collapsed cardboard boxes (despising styrofoam), filled six large debris bags while reckoning my sweat drenched labor would soon fill the van with 1200 miles west and that was not bad at all. Behind all this was the last thing, a fancy shopping bag, from the department store Lenox “Gifts That Celebrate Life”, containing two large ziplok baggies, enclosing two paper bags covering two plastic snap lid quart jars.
I am a conscientious sorter and this attic built in 1870 was made of no telling, and also known to have included access to a Person of Interest in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Opened one, not unmindful it could fit a copy of the real Zapruder film (pre-seen in an 8mm metal cannister marked RZ).
First thought: bath salts? Closer at the other.
Calcium (grey, flecked with white, I did not look long) of particle sizes I recognized, that sudden as a lash, released a faint, indefinably dreadful odor.
Remains.
A hit of nausea.
I took a break and went home to cool and shower.
Returned to K an old guitar he'd asked me to look for and kept for myself a fleece white Christmas teddy bear with a blue sweater.
He didn't know about anyone's ashes, saying must have belonged to an old tenant. Over 40 years, there were too many to recall.
Probably shouldn't leave them there I said.
Oh no, K agreed, they could be haunting the house.
Maybe you could spread them in the garden.
He didn't know about the gang of ferals that take my flower bed for a cat box.
That evening I'd go to the Mississippi, five blocks away.
Meantime, where to keep these?
Not coming into my house.
No! Stated bike cargo basket.
The old green Coleman cooler under the house agreed, and there I placed them, careful to separate the lid from that much need to get out.
A refrain from Jimmy Dale Gilmore for what my 53 years had done three times before.
Tonight I think I'm going to go...
So, long ago left by tenant unknown two polyethylene snap lid quart urns containing cremains, the light is waning but bright, you ready?
Would I be surprised to learn August 21 was the day you were born?
I don’t think it works that way.
I held another's once. I'd guess you were woman between 120 and 140 pounds.
That you were alright, cared for inside those bags, and perhaps too sudden or much or heavy for someone at one time and their month to month lease.
But you are finally going out tonight.
In the black shoulder bag Rebecca gave me in 2003.
A fine ride that has transported beach stuff home from the Gateway to the Spirit North America. Kept camera, composition notebook and pen along a finger stick blood glucose monitor and medicine.
Ah...sorry.
A funny time at the Greyhound Bus Station in Atlanta, buying a newspaper when a strap got closed in a dispenser and not but four more quarters giving it up. Of course I had none and it took 10 minutes sawing the strap with a key but I caught my bus!.
You tug my shoulder.
About... 4 lbs?
What about Washington Square Park?
I don't have a clear picture of the Big Muddy.
Kind of Sedimentary?
Consider the palms and oaks shaded winding path to the Nola Aids Memorial. Engraved names on granite bricks before a wall of glass faces by memorial benches, long leaves and purple flowers.
What about some grass then?
This bright and sunny lawn where dogs are constrained. Favored by running children, tossed frisbees, strummed guitars, blankets, naps, novel readings and picnics, that sound alright?
No it had not occurred to me there is a law.
Pardon I did not greet this day considering your resting places.
I met the park in October 2005 as it was being taken over by commune hippies and barefoot doctors. They spent days clearing brush and opened the Welcome Home Kitchen for a traumatized four fifths vacant city that gained a little week by week.
Yes, it was like a village and I felt an ease to be among ruins much greater than mine.
800 meals a day, a place to congregate and convene. Free peanut butter and clothes and condoms. Meals Ready to Eat. Nice vegetarian dinners. Community washed dishes, so much that the Property Owners along the street got upset and shut it down after Thanksgiving...
Lets walk down Frenchmen.
I'd like a beer from the Deli.
Where Mama answers the phone to say, FremenDeliMayHelpYou?
In seven tenths of a second, I have recorded her greeting.
Did you know my middle name is Impulse Buy at the Checkout Line?
A Peanut Crunch bar I'll enjoy just for you.
Two all smiles pretty young girls in little dresses and chubby arms just came in.
You like this kind of evening don't you?
Warm, golden hued, those racketing insects in the trees. I don't know. Perhaps you were an entomologist? Cicadas, crickets...
Passing Check Point Charlies. One guy playing to none, some wah wah 70's funk guitar, lets keep going.
Tugged Shoulder says you have been ready for a long time.
Sunny Side of the Street is being performed at the Balcony Music Club, formerly Oswald's Speakeasy.
No! We won't go down Decatur.
Left along the Mint. Right through the Market. Is closing now, just a few vendors loading vehicles. A bantering goes on. He's saying: That is None of Your Concern.
This is about seeing him next Saturday.
Marvin Gaye on the PA, but isn't that sweet?
Past a courtyard where there's a live "and when we Kiss… Fire"...segue sax solo…
This last left delivers the river. Smells a little like Singapore past this restaurant. The waiter is on his game and a big round table is happy. Its great smelling and eating tasty things, don't you think.
So this is your view. Gov Nichols Wharf to the left, Jackson Square to the right, Algiers across the way, and right now the Bridge looks like a Joel Meyerowitz photograph.
We took our 2nd walk in Nola here. A Saturday afternoon in June. I was staying in a big three story house otherwise unoccupied and that night she went to a wedding and returned a bit past tipsy. We slept upstairs in the corner bedroom where a tribulum, clear as Chehvov, leaned against a wall. Some nights we tried the next bedroom over, it was like changing sets or inhabiting a beautiful painting.
She said she loved me and it wasn't just the drink saying.
Well it was, but I did.
Anyway, this is where I made a buddy movie with Denzel called Déjà Vu. Right there in Algiers. I was National Guardsman Buck Private DUNN. $75 a day and good food. I felt like a dope in the uniform, but at least I didn't have to wear those silly sailor white bell bottoms. I had a back story but it's a little grim for now. Board the Ferry with a few dozen sailors going to New Orleans on leave for Mardi Gras, we were directed to act uninhibitedly excited and happy.
Yes I had a hard time getting into character.
I did, and he gave me the Stink Eye for staring.
I believe it was a moment of seclusion on the dock to puff a cigar that he wished for.
Oh he is definitely a lot of charisma, I could feel it from 40 feet away.
So let's do this. I'm climbing down the levee over big rocks.
I'm so grateful being able to walk and balance and hop and carry you.
Now there's a little sandbar. I'll put my feet in the water.
First Jar. You are a cloud of powder drifting away from the scatter. You are a white plume in the water. Sinking and filling in the ridges of sand. Now I'm walking a few yards away in the direction of the Bridge. I've tried to throw you farther, another cloud of powder has drifted away from your scatter.
A young man is stacking or writing with rocks on the sandbar. A couple walking along the Levee. A man sitting up there saying last week the water was this high. Pointing to where he sits. The young man with the rocks says yeah, it can go down fast. Pause at the trash can.
I'll keep your jars. Rinse them to keep my mother of pearl shards,
If you won't mind.
Walking back a band is playing Chaka Kahn.
Tell Me Something Good.