50. Vogue La Galere

by W. B.



Under lowering dawn skies like winegrapes
     shot with veins of hot yellow
A high Crescent City moon could not distend
     her beams on the town below

No helpful light shone inside
     the dark storm circle whose scything edge
Sickled flat the swamp tupelos
     sunk the fisher's bateau neath the sedge

A water Hell that blew out well baffles
     bent float derricks at the knees
Hurled hundred-year-cypress over drowned bayous
     at a city of fleur-de-lis

In the Big and Too Easy, voodoo dolls bob
     in a flooded church celestory
And those sad caught on rooftops watch
     the ghastly parade of memento mori

Only wondering why

Why? Where big rivers conflux the sea
     there will always be a port of call
So too if deepwater energy is to be found
     jackknife rigs reek of methanol

Life ebbs and flows where the wet brown land
     of Evangeline meets Gulf surge
Acadian man and immutable economics
     uneasy forgather just upon that verge

Each forgetting that ever anon the restless foam
     driven by searching wind
Roars up from Barataria across The Quarter
     measuring alike foe and friend

Who yesterday gaily bedecked for Fat Tuesday
     gamboled on the trolley ground
Now thinking on this, the wisest on their housetop peak
     waiting to be found

Only wonder when


hellicane category: local color