#louisiana
Warm and full
My bubbly, baptismal vessel
Carries casked vanilla notes in its steam
A pillow of air
Keeps me from drowning
My ******* float and lift away
Brackish water covering near the totality of my body
Changes within me and its salinity
As each teardrop rolls into the mixture,
I struggle less to stay afloat
Jul 1, 2025
Jul 1, 2025 at 6:35 PM UTC
We sit closely at the table,
Sharing conversations about nothings
Full of friends and strangers combined,
The band begins to play
Your hand grazes mine,
You stand up tall to ask
I step, stride in gentle procession,
Your hand possessed by mine
You turn to me,
Two equals pressing slightly
Eyed but not staring,
Hungry but not starving
I rest my palm on your broad shoulder,
Feeling your familiar fingers tips gently grasping my hip
Your body whispers to mine,
Pushing it in rhythm
I respond to your queuing,
Touching your face and lips when wanting
Guiding not insisting,
Vulnerable and respected
Two people working together,
Towards a partnership perfected
May 31, 2025
May 31, 2025 at 10:13 AM UTC
Take me back to the South?
I rubbed a puppy but you made it live,
I held your hand and ego as a ghost rode *****
I tasted your mouth
Your deep addictive kisses were salty ripe with hidden tears, expectations and confessions of fears,
You pressed me for affirmation with one foot out the door,
My supposition acquiesced to passion
Then, you disappeared
Now you’re here
Pressing me,
Asking me what do I want?
I need consistency, presence, commitment, and time.
What do I feel?
What I feel is
Soul mate attraction,
Unconfined by silence,
Driven, diving, biding
Ineffable, inexplicable, unconstrainable
Uncontainable love and lust
Intertwined and unbound
How do you feel?
Do you have clarity?
For me, it’s taking its sweet time
Dragging and compartmentalizing
The inner unraveling of the unforgiven knot of the unacknowledged
The unpolished
And unabolished.
What do I want?
Excuse me as I try to unpack the dusty boxes,
On my neglected shelves.
I’m not a stranger to love or lust,
But, I’m not a friend either.
I’m not an enchantress,
No siren here my friend.
Nor, am I an open book,
My closest companions are the choir of thoughts,
Who sing songs of loyalty, doubts and declarations,
I’ve wandered but
I want a true partner to walk hand in hand the path of a life mundane,
Stealing moments of hungry happiness, exquisite.
You break down my defenses
Despite all logic and suppression,
Fingers press into mind’s flesh,
Nails rake down your neck.
My heart pounds and my mouth rounds,
Warm wet worship,
Down the base of your inspiring ****
Your groaning and growing elicit my complete attention,
And, focus my irreverent intentions
To unraveling the bead formed on the cusp of your tip,
Your palms trace the strands of my hair,
Your pleasure drives sated completion
Is it plans or preoccupations of hands?
Are you practicing yet?
For now, as you lament love lost
I’ll sit quasi patient,
Outwardly immobile and facetiously engaged
Damp wanting but waiting,
Quietly watching the two flames in my candle
As they melt and burn the wax around its’ wicks,
Hot but constrained
Destructive but contained.
I’ll be externally reverent for the life carefully molded,
Grateful for familial serenity
But, ever mindful of the calling,
Forged by sound, touch and taste
To an internal dereliction sung by our blue flame.
May 11, 2025
May 11, 2025 at 1:26 PM UTC
Is it really that black and white?
To choose a side,
is it red or blue?
Whats true for me,
or whats "best" for you?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Burned to dust in California.
Drowned to death in Lousiana.
Blown away in the Central states.
We are left with heartbreak,
and rage....
We reap what we sow,
isnt that what they say?
Is this why Violets lie in my wake?
So where have all the flowers gone?
Raise your eyes and see,
count our stars.
Love is free.
Sep 15, 2021
Sep 15, 2021 at 7:01 PM UTC
Honeysuckle scenting the warm summer night
Getting drunk on sweet old apple wine
Crickets chirping their melancholy tune
Rocking on the porch beneath the wandering moon
Soothing sounds of the bayou flowing
Warm breeze from the south winds blowing
Whispering through the leaves calming
Winking fireflies light up the night glowing
The tinkling of wind chimes off in the distance
Smell the moss from cypress trees, tall and twisted
Click-ety clack, click-ety clack
Faint sounds of a train coming down the track
Haunting strains of a Cajun lullaby fill the air
Splash in the bayou birds scatter everywhere
Slowly drifting in and out of sleep
While the long blue bayou shadows creep
ALesiach © 07/01/2017
Jul 22, 2019
Jul 22, 2019 at 4:58 PM UTC
Look what the cat done drug in
Slow on down... darlin’!
Hol’ yo horses!
Don’t go get’n a conniption fit
Or get’n your knickers in a knot!
Hush up
Or’n I’m a goin **** a knot in yo tail!
I’m busy as a one legged cat in a sandbox,
but I’m fixin tell what we got here at JuJu’s
Now lookie here...
we got
crawfish mild spicy
crawfish medium spicy
crawfish spicy spicy
we got
crawfish with corn
crawfish with sausage
crawfish with potatoes
we got
crawfish with red sauce
crawfish with pink sauce
crawfish with melted butter
If y’all a bit dry...
we got
crawfish with canned soda
crawfish with bottled water
crawfish with beer
crawfish with BYOB
Or we gots
jus’ crawfish
Go on an pick how yo’ want yo’ crawfish spiced, then go on an decide what yo’ wanna add! I reckon we gots dang near 362,888 ways to eat these here mudbugs
You might could get
spicy spicy crawfish with
Zummo’s sausage
spicy spicy crawfish with corn
spicy spicy crawfish with potatoes
spicy spicy crawfish with
Zummo’s sausage and corn
spicy spicy crawfish with
Zummo’s sausage and potatoes
spicy spicy crawfish with
Zummo’s sausage, corn and potatoes
spicy spicy crawfish with
Zummo’s sausage and beer
spicy spicy crawfish with corn and beer
spicy spicy crawfish with potatoes and beer
spicy spicy crawfish with
Zummo’s sausage, corn, potatoes
and beer
I could go on...
till I’m plum tuckered out... but...
Got it? You good??
You want mushrooms
Well, I’ll be
Don’t go axin... what we ain’t got
No siree bob, no mushrooms
We also ain’t got tea, sweet or unsweet
But sweet’s the only way to have tea sweetie
If you want soda, you can get
Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Dr Pepper
Diet Dr Pepper, Hawaiian Punch, Brisk Tea
Or Root Beer
We also got shrimp... just boiled
We also got gloves... half a dollar
Well, I’m worn slap out!
Watcha have a hankerin for?
Take your own sweet time!
Sit a spell
You’ll soon be full as a tick on a big dog!
Happy as a dead pig in sunshine!
You’ll wanna slap yer mama!
Can’t decide hon?
I do declare!
Aren’t you precious?
(now... he startin get on my last nerve)
Still...can’t make up your mind?
Well... I can’t do it fer ya!
(bout aggravatin as a rock)
You picky?
(Lawd have mercy!)
Bless your heart!
© 2019 Jim Davis
Apr 30, 2019
Apr 30, 2019 at 11:41 PM UTC
They found a dead body in Bayou D’Inde
Said he washed up on Thursday afternoon
That February water was real real cold
When old man drowned
I ‘member hearin’ bout that dead body at school
Same as when they found a lady’s head in Cameron Parish
Reminds me when I found an old ice chest by the pond
Full of dead *****
Nobody notices **** anymore
The world ain’t watchin’
It’s too busy texting and driving on the bridge
To care if anyone jumps
Mar 25, 2019
Mar 25, 2019 at 12:01 AM UTC
I have it in spades
But it comes in waves,
In the climb, I know I'm worth it,
On the precipice, it feels so clear,
In the curl, I'm tested,
It's in the break that I get lost,
And just as it pulls me in,
I ride upon the backs of the strong women who surround me,
Holding me accountable,
Exposing the humanity that grounds me,
Resolve is a funny thing,
I have it in spades,
But it comes in waves.
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 12:37 PM UTC
In the grass,
At my knees
Between my legs
In spite of protest
At his desk,
Beside my waist,
In their closet
Against the wall,
By the pool,
In his ____
At the game,
Beside his in-laws
Beneath the table
Next to his wife,
Near his son,
On his knees,
On my car,
With absolute disregard,
With complete abandon,
With brazen enthusiasm,
With unabashed passion,
Without limitation,
Without reservation,
Without a yes
He begged me.
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 3:36 PM UTC
The alligator in my swamp
The hornet in my nest
Whispered softly under the meteor showered sky,
I'm the only one who'll know.
Because he never had a soul,
He never could remember mine.
Jul 17, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 at 2:03 PM UTC
Before the murky waters came
Life was different
Maw-Maw’s red-bricked house sat at the back of our dead-end road
The ever-welcoming glass door with the
Faulty hitch opened up to a two-step stair
Leading down into a living room
Encompassed with the smell of
Cajun cooking
And basked in the essence
Of Family
After the murky waters came
Life looked different
I remember the water whirl pooling into the tops of my
rain boots
As I trudged next door to my aunt’s water-lined house
To comfort Maw-Maw, who lost everything
Her tears falling into the stench-infested puddles at her feet
And jumping right back up in a splash as if they too
Were hurrying to find shelter
The heat of the sun held the
Stench of the monster
That had us all in its grip
Patches of brown grass mocked us
Where the water had decided to leave early
And accumulate somewhere else
Piles of our lives lined the driveways
Mildew fogged up the windows of
Miscellaneous cars and trucks
Which still held secrets that the murky waters left inside
What could be salvaged
What remnants were left
From before
The murky waters came
Floors were ripped up
Walls gutted out
Bricks broke easily under the weight
Of demolition
Our hearts broke easily under the weight
Of the water
I once watched a documentary about horror
Which was described as something that simply should not be
but somehow
is
Horror was the bulging, black molded bar in my kitchen
The scattered furniture in my living room
The stench that took over my senses at the opening of a door to go inside or outside; fresh air forgotten
The fact that my bedroom looked normal in spite of the soggy carpet and the
Drooping painting hanging on my wall,
Clothes strewn across my bed in an effort
To survive
After the murky waters left
Life was different
Life became “before the flood” and “after the flood”
“Hey, how are you,” became “have you heard from FEMA?”
“What are you up to” became “are y’all raising or demolishing?”
Three mountains of bricks down my road became
Trailers on pedestals
The trash, our former possessions, was eventually gone
New replaced the old
Now
life is life
We are thankful for what we have
We still sit on that wooden swing in the shade of the afternoon
And we reminisce of a time before the murky waters came
All the while appreciating the
Now
And we still laugh together
We still cry together
Up in that storm-safe trailer
At the back of our dead-end road
Gumbo is cooking on the stove
And we’re basking warmly in the essence
Of Family
Dec 1, 2017
Dec 1, 2017 at 8:04 AM UTC
Smiling, you bless every day,
A regular Louis I might say.
A jazz musician with a giant heart ,
Letting all who come take part.
Join the music! Jump in the sway!
Hear that jazz musiscian play.
Hit the notes by the lamplight friend,
Until with the night our revel ends.
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 12:09 PM UTC
This land still sings your silent song
I chased it West under suspension bridges
In the empty whiskey bottles along Mississippi railroad tracks
In the sound of sugar sweet air in blue humid mornings
and the cool breath of absinthe sipped by the riverside
flanked by banana leaves.
Heard it in the breeze of swamp-side Cyprus trees, over swaying docks to rod iron French Quarter balconies, above the Bourbon street children drumming hymns of the Bayou's soul.
Oct 10, 2017
Oct 10, 2017 at 10:39 PM UTC
Ain't no woman for me, no, no,
'Cept the Lady Annabelle.
I'm gonna tell the story,
'Bout how she put me through hell.
I said to my Lady,
"You can have whatever you claim."
She took her box to the Northern fields;
She filled her box with the sugar cane.
I said, "Why'd ja have to break my heart?
Why'd ja have to break my heart?"
Aint't no kind of feeling
Like when your heart is in some pain.
And it don't help at all to know
She filled her box with the sugar cane.
I said, "Why'd ja have to break my heart?
Why'd ja have to break my heart?"
Sep 25, 2017
Sep 25, 2017 at 12:51 AM UTC
There is a girl called Southern Ugly,
She often faces the mirror- Believing
that the reflection must be oneself.
But a woman’s essence
Lives in the light, not in our eyes.
Mother Mary, dressed in blue-
Your daughter sees her face, knowing
That she is not first to be saved for Heaven.
We come second to God
(Though Man did not refuse the apple).
Mother said, “You are a southern belle,
Just baptized in the bayou.
****** in the water,
The depths of the swamp do not foster
Power nor Fortune
But your birth, the prayer of the Moon.
And like a cypress knee
That has not yet broken the surface,
You’re hidden in wisdom unknown."
Aug 14, 2017
Aug 14, 2017 at 3:52 AM UTC
Nature, too, is self-consuming.
Even the grandest oak
of all southern Louisiana
will be uprooted in a hurricane.
The moss that grazes the water
with gentle finger tips
from those weary branches
will be swallowed by the water.
An old man's life spent in Houma
is reflected in the river currents;
his house built on stilts
across from the cemetery
where is wife is buried
next to her eldest son.
It meets the Mississippi
not surrendering,
returning
Jul 12, 2017
Jul 12, 2017 at 9:02 PM UTC
Tiny ankles hang down from a wooden bridge over the bayou-
and my friend and I stare at the black water
and point at all the furniture legs jetting out of the blackness
as if they were Cyprus knees—
and he says to me “Someone said there’s at least a hundred bodies in there”
and without hesitation or a moment of silence
for the uncertain yet forgotten Dead
I say, “Bodies float, so we would see them if that were true”
and he replied, after a brief moment of thought,
“Maybe they’re tied to all the couches or stuffed in the refrigerators”
and I couldn’t believe how many house hold appliances
have been repurposed to host all these passed souls
in the bowels of the swamp
and with a swing of my leg, too swift—
my left shoe dropped and hovered on the water
where lily pads should have been
Jul 12, 2017
Jul 12, 2017 at 9:00 PM UTC
It's 10 pm and the heat just hit me
The AC is off but I couldn't be more happy
Touched my first palm tree and dipped my hand in the toilet
Grabbed a cab to the city, on the seat there was a death threat
For breakfast we had Bananas foster, po'boys and hash brown
When Amanda power walked I had to tell her to slow down
By the Mississipi river I drank a peach daquiri
The waitress wanted more tips and across the streets she chased me
Strippers gave me the finger, ****** begged for ******
We were stuck in traffic cause of the constant flash floods
In a Camaro and a Werewolf to creep with vampires and slaves
Talking about plantations by the old family graves
And you were so beautiful under that big oak tree
Even more in the rain outside that locked cemetery
On Bourbon street the homeboys were asking for hugs
And I gave away all my coins to some thugs
We ate jambalaya and fried green tomatoes
The ladies were halfnaked but no one called them hoes
In a blacksmith shop with no electricity
We drank Morgan and got wasted with some other swedes
Wherever we went we felt the smell of ****
From every balcony people were throwing beads
All the ***** sounds were drowned out by the air condition
On the floor Hoyt from True Blood was changing positions
Then Chris slept like a baby when the cockroach sang him lullabies
For some reason it made more sense than "bridge may ice"
Dec 10, 2016
Dec 10, 2016 at 8:15 AM UTC
Down in the bayou where the mangroves grow
There's talk of black voodoo, like Marie Leveau
The Swamp Witch, is legend, she has magic so black
That those who have seen her, have never come back
There;s tales of the noises that come from the dark
Of werewolves and zombies as rough as the bark
The mangroves are sentinels, to where the magic resides
Where even a longboat has no room to glide
Bodies go missing from the graveyards most nights
And there's always a fog shading the fireflies lights
The Swamp Witch is ruler and Queen of this world
Where souls are all taken and spines can be curled
They say that she came here from Canadian lands
She was a metis they say, from the Western Tar Sands
A mystic by nature, a dark witch by blood
She lives deep in the swamp, protected by gators and mud
The gators respect her, they do as she bids
They keep watch on the waters, they're her reptillian kids
She keeps zombies as gendarmes, collecting bodies to turn
Just how black is her magic, no one can discern
The Swamp Witch is legend, she is as old as all time
The air in the bayou is as thick as the slime
The cajuns say voodoo is the core of her heart
They avoid fishing where the mangrove trees start
The Swamp Witch, a legend ? or is she truly the Queen
She's the Louisiana Witch, no one survives once she's seen.....
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 11:33 PM UTC
It's 10 pm and the heat just hit me
The AC is off but I couldn't be more happy
Touched my first palm tree and dipped my hand in the toilet
Grabbed a cab to the city, on the seat there was a death threat
For breakfast we had Bananas foster, po'boys and hash brown
When Amanda power walked I had to tell her to slow down
By the Mississipi river I drank a peach daquiri
The waitress wanted more tips and across the streets she chased me
Strippers gave me the finger, ****** begged for ******
We were stuck in traffic cause of the constant flash floods
In a Camaro and a Werewolf to creep with vampires and slaves
Talking about plantations by the old family graves
And you were so beautiful under that big oak tree
Even more in the rain outside that locked cemetery
On Bourbon street the homeboys were asking for hugs
And I gave away all my coins to some thugs
We ate jambalaya and fried green tomatoes
The ladies were halfnaked but no one called them hoes
In a blacksmith shop with no electricity
We drank Morgan and got wasted with some other swedes
Wherever we went we felt the smell of ****
From every balcony people were throwing beads
All the ***** sounds were drowned out by the air condition
On the floor Hoyt from True Blood was changing positions
Then Chris slept like a baby when the cockroach sang him lullabies
For some reason it made more sense than "bridge may ice"
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 1:27 AM UTC
In old New Orleans
Musical lumberjacks
Legitimizing their axes;
Just piano, clarinet,
Bass and the drums.
Bringing jazz back
And then some.
The cat could play
That skinny long black horn,
Hotter clarinet than
Anybody ever born,
He kept hitting notes
So pure and high
We felt each note
In our eyes!
And, if you chance by
Remember this,
They don’t allow dancing.
But when the drummer
Makes works those skins
And makes them talk out
There is plenty of toe-tapping
And nobody ever walks out.
Then, when the guy
Plays that bass fiddle
He adds an underscore
To top bottom and middle.
It’s an underbeat of grace
That will fill the rest space
And the hearts of all
In this overcrowded place.
Vintage jazz roars out
Of an old, old piano
Played by a happy madman
With fingers afire, he knows
He’s got them hooked;
He’s making them wild
As he wails on those keys
He looks out and smiles
And he puts the Satchmo touch
On those old-timey songs
And once in a while
They ask us to sing along.
For the past forty-six years
Those ugly plastered walls
Have never hear so many
Gratefully rendered curtain calls
From an audience of clerks and swells.
On Bourbon Street’s Fritzel’s.
Through hurricanes and beers
Like stepping back a hundred years.
Fats is still playing, Bessie singing
Original jazz music is still swinging.
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 6:50 PM UTC
a wise old sage from Louisiana, smoking cigarettes,
—which i stole one from that same pack later that day
and smoked it and almost threw up
behind the kind old episcopal woman’s house,
who the sage and i were living with in Memphis in july,
because we both were working on a stage somewhere in town
and we needed a place to stay a while, to watch summer rise from spring,
and i needed a place for you to **** me,
my phantom,
you, who, countless times, the Louisianan sage warned me about,
and the old episcopal woman hopefully knew nothing about,
who, chanting truths of freedom and songs of singularity,
white-haired, rose-gardening,
solitary and
alone and
buried alive
in the walls of her house,
surrounded by her memories,
like the coffee mugs i accidentally stole
when I left in August,
which, as it turns out, they were heirlooms of her dead mother’s—
i cracked them all, i believe—
the louisianan sage, who once tasted the sweat of New Orleans’ blues jazz soul,
now sitting across from me in the episcopal lady’s back porch,
sipping coffee from one of her mugs
that i eventually took and inevitably cracked,
this sage told me wide-eyed through cigarette smoke,
seeing visions in the june blue sky,
‘the truth hurts. but a lie hurts more.’
the smoke rose to the clouds above our heads
like a sacrifice to god, and i rose with it,
and told him about september eighteenth.
and what it felt like to die
and come here.
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 2:49 AM UTC
*I am drunk again
waiting for the cab
The heavy rain washes
my spirit
Let us spare a fish bowl
for the lonely homeless man
The drunkard Saints I shall
miss them all
When I'm drunk again
I'll give them a call*
Farewell French Quarter
I bid you goodnight.
Aug 18, 2015
Aug 18, 2015 at 1:01 PM UTC