Going to New Orleans

Hey, guys. I guess this one's pretty long and dark but I wanted to share it anyway.


(2003)


I.

rumbling down Interstate Highway 10
in a rented van with food wrappers
and obsolete useless toys
littering the seats

Aunt Monica was ninety years old
but she walked faster than I did
had more fire in her eyes
and spat it out upon her lips
along with her chicken penne

I wanted her to love me
but she kept inferring
how stupid your name was
and all children's names in this age

we walked through the graves
the marble orchards
of New Orleans' tombstones
cold and pebbles and smooth stone
I with the bear rug
thrown around my shoulders
you righting the upturned flowers
praying for the deceased children
I pointed to the hundred year-old remains
of what had been a day-old baby
and you squealed in delight

there was a hole chipped
into the marble door of a mausoleum
I wanted to look inside
but kept turning away
finally I stole a glance
expecting to see a corpse
but there was only silence
I found no glory there
I found it empty as life

back in Aunt Monica's apartment
I kept trying to speak with her
to show her what a good little
ancestress I was

that I would continue on the name
of all these people I did not know
this strange legacy of my mother's
and her tainted blood

her memories of walking
through the streets
at her father's side
her cold intellectual father
who collected coins and had traveled
to Africa and went everywhere on foot
who did all these things
while I have done nothing with my life

my mother's eyes that glitter
at the mention of nostalgic days
when parents beat their children
and you could hear the rustle
and crack of the switch

but Aunt Monica could not hear me speak
she was deaf and kept saying so
when she talked it was like screaming
then you had to go potty
we went into her bathroom
having forgotten she still
took care of herself

for as she said so herself
the body was failing
but oh the mind was sharp
sharp and burning

but the diapers were everywhere
soiled and bloated
there was a brown residue on the tiles
and the smell was terrible
and now I am horrified at
what humans leave behind

II.

walking down New Orleans
I felt irrevocably insane
as if the city had originated insanity

I saw dust corners and rape
in every orifice
every glorious
Corinthian-columned rat hole

New Orleans
my ancient necropolis
where all my Irish immigrant ancestors
are buried
New Orleans
my city
blood of my blood

III.

the Garden District at midnight
passing down Saint Charles Avenue
winding down Camp and Gravier

there the hotel

oh hotels
the sadness of hotels
where our lives are rendered
that much more cheap and miniscule

there there the little hair drier
the iron in the closet
for erasing wrinkles with steam
coffee makers and joysticks
plugged into televisions
while the earth below us swims
with the New Orleans dead
and the stink of the Bayou

outside the people were eating
and drinking themselves sick
to get away from the dead

your dead little hands
in a hotel bed
oh your lifeless white digits
infant fingers

had I already taught you
to live drunk on this sleep
blood of my blood

IV.

packed sweaty like sausages
in rented vans and hotel rooms
your mother’s own stink
of rotten vanilla
and something else
you unconsciously recognize

you were forced by proximity
to watch me snore
with my mouth open
the spittle cascading

walking walking
as if we were stranded
and forced to fight for our lives
the sex shops and the voodoo haunts
the heaving tourists
I was terrified of letting you go

oh death drenched city

the tomb of Marie Laveau
was being peddled to visitors
as we walked and drove
and moved about like dead things
I wondered about all these people’s lives
I would never touch
these living people
who shall soon crowd out
the already crowded cemeteries
where there are signs everywhere
that read PERPETUAL CARE

but nothing is perpetual
and nothing is sacred
there is only this quiet
and grime upon marble
from city streets

would the world have survived
if Eliot had never lived
does it matter
perhaps he is encased now
in a tomb that intersects
a highway where horns blast
in perpetual song

V.

New Orleans
leaving New Orleans
at nine a.m. while you were
still asleep
I smoking in the street
searching with microscopic
fastidiousness at crumbling mortar
across the lanes

oh death drenched city
blood of my blood

I could not detect the more subtle odors
for my sense of smell is deteriorating
along with my sense of touch
and I feel nothing

staring down alleyways at shadows
watching the drama enfold of a million
overdoses and lost dreams
in this necrotic city

I knew we would be returning to nothing
in the afternoons I hide
from your grandmother
by locking the bathroom door
and placing my head on the toilet seat

in New Orleans
there were many toilet seats
and many bathrooms
i imagined the epiphanies one would have
while staring glossy eyed at their own
particular textures with the reek of death
at all sides

we have returned now
now you are are in school
learning to undo death
and live properly
I have slept for hours with my head
cradled by white ceramic
that feels much like cold marble

I shall pick you up at 4 o’clock