New Orleans Dream

New Orleans Dreams

I was back in New Orleans and you were there out of place and you didn’t know where to go. You had a girl with you who had long black hair which made me sad.  Lost in the streets, I kept telling you to go to Frenchmen Street or to the swamps to see some alligators. Then things spun as they often do in dreams and I stumbled into a nightmare where bodies lay on the cobbles, dismembered limbs and blood. Now I lose all sense of me and time and place in this crazy city of music, heat and palm trees. It’s been a long time since you and I have seen each others flesh. I wonder sometimes. If you had come with me on this amazing adventure would we still be as close as we once were?

 

What if I were to re write what I just wrote from the end to the beginning? Just as an experiment…

 

Would we still be closest friends if we had done this together? This crazy adventure makes me lose all sense of self and time and place. Being here with you is what I want because my thoughts are made from your flesh. You’d love this place, the music, heat and palm trees. The pitch quilt yawns and I am stood in a dark cobbled street where dismembered bodies lie. A cold hand guides me through the streets and the sky begins to clear. I see you there, standing with her. Her long black hair frightens me. I take my mind off these dark thoughts and tell you to go to Frenchman Street where the locals go for jazz. You are lost and you don’t know your way but I can show you how to get to the swamps.

 

Exotic green leaves stretch in to the sky

Of New Orleans.

Your voice crystallized in my

 Memory.                                                                                    There you are 

From the fleshiness of my mind.

Your soft tissue ignited by sunlight.

Things spin as they often do in dreams

And I stumble into a nightmare.

The girl with you has

Long

Black

Hair.

It pricks my spine.

“Where’s good to go?” she asks.

A ventriloquist’s dummy, I say to myself.

A pitch quilt yawns over the city.

Fear attacks my senses.

Um … Frenchman Street or the swamps?

Voice faltering I stumble into a street where bodies litter the cobbles.

Dismembered limbs and

Blood.

All sense of me and time and place in this crazy city evaporates

As swiftly as the image of you does from the street where I stand.