A Louisiana of the Mind
Louisiana is the only state in the country
(other than Alaska)
with “parishes” instead of counties.
Birthplace of jazz, Tabasco Sauce,
and the first ever cocktail.
The first opera in the U.S.
Crawfish Capital of the World.
Dogtrot Capital of the World.
Strawberry Capital of the World.
Frog Capital of the World.
Boudin Capital of the World.
Cajun Music Capital of the World.
Zydeco Music Capital of the world.
Jambalaya Capital of the World.
Catfish Capital of the Universe.
There’s voodoo on the bayou so get you some.
In America, everyone’s a house,
and in every house is a locked room
with something inside clamoring for attention.
Everyone’s got the heebie-jeebies in America.
Tooth brushing in American movies is unacceptably hard.
Watching the news in America is unacceptably hard.
Everything is unacceptably hard.
Gastronomy is dead,
so I snack on gin and salty crackers,
bloating my belly with briny despair,
while something inside me
clamors for attention.
There is a kind of green only the English can come up with,
a shade of green associated with British sports cars,
often referred to as British Racing Green.
It is a dark forest green,
like the forests of Louisiana’s bayou,
dark and deep,
the color of a 1963 Triumph TR4,
my brother’s first real car and,
like the forest,
adept at cloaking false realities…
shitty Lucas electrics,
washboard suspension,
outdated chassis,
and yet,
a commercial success,
and then you realize
the boundary between
what is real
and what is imagined,
in both car and forest,
is tenuous at best,
like the run off
of contaminated water
from the church graveyard…
it makes no sense,
and yet,
it clamors for attention
because some things in life
are unacceptably hard.
