Thursday 10 June 2010

walkin' through New Orleans


actually the title of the song is
'walkin to New Orleans'
but hey this is my page and i'll write what i like

wandering a block behind St Charles
in the Garden Quarter we find the Evergreen
flower shop
a curious place
that looks as though time has fallen asleep inside
the kindly proprietor insisted on making us a present
of a can of peach juice

in the vacant lot next door
only fragments of paving remain
the house succumbed to Katrina


grand houses line up little ways further along the street
suspect a black panther or two may lurk in the bushes somewhere


N'Orlins has a warm cheery surface
a
'hi honey, you's sure lurkin purdy today'
ambience
but we suspect a darker current simmers beneath the smiles
we speculate that plump tourists are lulled with
doctored daiquiris
before being lured away from the bright lights of Bourbon street
and cut into bite-size lumps for the 'gators
- all those alligators in the gator farms
must get sick of eating chicken all the time




in a sidestreet off Royal we find the Kitchen Witch
a fabulous bookstore harbouring
cookbooks old and new
garnished with lovely collections of things
such as these dragon cups
which remind me a little of some i once had
from my grandmother
that were consumed by the 83 fires


a while later
an emerald dragonfly flies out of the night
and into another store
blessing us with a moment of shimmering beauty


[images - except for that last one - courtesy of 'Helga' in the Camerabag app for iPhone]

6 comments:

  1. For some reason this reminds me of the hothouseflower.
    Did you read it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the evergreen florist with the defiant splash of colour amongst the otherwise grey surrounds.

    ReplyDelete
  3. the hothouseflower? not familiar with it in literature, only literally....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for taking me through N'Orlins. Hope you're having a nice stay there.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The hothouseflower and the nine plants of desire. First novel of Margot Berwin!

    =a little bit of Castaneda and lots of plants!=
    XXXm

    ReplyDelete