Her voice sounds
more whiskey-soaked
than lacquered
with daiquiris as it
floats out the doors
onto Bourbon Street.
Covering a forty-six
Year-old song by
The Pretenders:
Got brass in pocket
Got bottle, I’m gonna use it
Intention, I feel inventive
Gonna make you,
make you notice.
Yeah, how could I not?
Especially when you get
to the chorus that proclaims
I’m special, so special.
That’s a wry assertion
on Bourbon Street.
Where half the businesses
feature some kind of invocation
of voodoo. Voodoo chicken
and daiquiris, Free samples.
Jello shots, Voodoo pharmacy,
voodoo dispensary. Voodoo t-shirts.
I wonder, if they have
some kind of voodoo fix for
The blood thirsty, fist pumping
maniacs on Fox News?
Dolls and pins?
Beads are still hanging from
the wrought iron balconies,
the party lingers on long after
the embers of Fat Tuesday
have dwindled and cooled
into the ashes of Wednesday
And the night air is scented
with the vapors and spliffs
of spring break.
We know, we walk past
the posters and stickers
plastered with skulls,
the girls dressed in sparkly
micro minis and the bros
are already quite primed
for primo party time
In the French Quarter.
Another relic lyric from the sixties
blares from another doorway,
“Been a long time,
been a long time,
been a long lonely, lonely,
lonely, lonely, lonely time”
And now we are escorted
into a high ceilinged room
with overhead fans and
white cotton table cloths.
Waiters in black suits and bow ties
filling goblets and answering
questions about menu selections
and wines or entrees with many
a Yes Ma’am or Yes Sir.
I want a Sazerac and oysters
if they have them raw
on the half shell.
Crab and crayfish, blackend
redfish, the traditional bounty
of the gulf and the delta.
Is that not what I should
ask for here? Perhaps not?
I haven’t forgotten the possibility
of immanent mortality that
drew us here in the first place.
We ride up St Charles Street,
under the wide oaks that cover
the street like an arbor.
Perhaps the same tunnel
that sheltered slavery’s whip
on naked black backs
and the fine horses hauling
carriages and ice wagons
In a time not yet lost
from memory and sorrow.
We bear that in mind
when we now pray, every day:
God, help us, to find our way,
to vanquish evil, in our hearts
and our actions, our consequences,
In this day, this hour, this moment.
Bourbon Street promises
A party, a time that you’ll
Never forget or perhaps
never remember. It’s voodoo.
With beads and free drinks.
And songs that attempt
to resurrect yesterdays.
