New Orleans Villanelle
by Ken Waldman
Decadence and humidity, New Orleans
midnights might as well be 9 A.M.,
the hour to rise up and get to it, see friends,
practice soul-making, and like occupations.
Jazz and funk. Sundry drug-taking. Orgasm.
Decadence and humidity, New Orleans,
magnetic crescent of extremes. The big fish wins.
Schools lose. It's all a game,
our race to rise up and get to it, see friends,
better inhabit this peculiar, insular maze of action,
our magnificent and gigantic terrarium.
Shadiness and stupidity? New Orleans
teaches us ecstasy and frustration.
We expect change without change. It's always the same,
always the hour to rise up and get to it, see friends,
vow to begin anew. And yet we daily spin
out of control. One more pothole? No problem!
Shadiness, stupidity, decadence, humidity. That's New Orleans
by the hour. So let's rise up and get to it, my friends.
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I write lots of occasional poems and lots of formal poems. But this unpublished villanelle, written for my 2015 New Orleans fringe festival run, remains a favorite since I felt it captured something essential of my New Orleans experience. I'm always a bit nervous when sharing place poems with people who live full-time where I'm writing about. But New Orleans readers and listeners took to this one. Me, I'm partial how I could interchange “decadence and humidity” with “shadiness and stupidity” and how I found room for pothole, orgasm, and an always slippery time of day.
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KEN WALDMAN has drawn on 39 years as an Alaska resident to produce poems, stories, and fiddle tunes that combine into a performance uniquely his. www.kenwaldman.com and www.trumpsonnets.com