The houses full of old tale
A place built on trading
I walk into town
The stories linger
On every note
They fly up in the air
And rest on the gable of every house
The Louisiana Blues
I arrived in New Orleans
On a bus full of folk
I wouldn’t want to seem
Too naïve around
I walked through the station
Eyes looking me up and down
I walked with my suitcase
Knowing I would stand out
I jumped in a taxi
And arrived at her house
With a bed neatly made
Sweet lady
Sister of a man I stayed with
Ten hours away
In Austin, Texas
She told me about herself
I told her about me
She gave me coins from the bank
Two sets of quarters
She said that’s for the tram
To save me finding change
I thanked her with all my smiles
And typed in the wifi code
She left so neatly on my bed
So kind of her to have me stay
In her neat little home
The next morning we walked
To the nearest tram stop
She told me the workings
Of the coin machine
Five quarters a ride
I stepped on the carriage
An old tram you’d see in the movies
Like it was restored
From the memories of old
Bells at every bend we turned
And all the stops we made
The colours of the houses
Hopping like the notes on the stage
I learned a thing or two
Before I came
To this state
The cotton fields and Blues
The slave trade centres
And the hangings from the trees
The white landlords
Forcing their men to sing
No speaking was allowed
So they shared their feelings through song
What I didn’t know
The cultures born from here
Pop culture icons that formed
From stories and cultures of old
The voodoo
From practices of old
Brought from other cultures
Morphed and shaped
To fit into the new people
Of the new land
The zombie
A disease rife with horror
Bodies piled in graveyards
A heart not yet stopped
Crawled from the decaying flesh
Walked through the town
Eyes red with blood
A story this grew
Into something a movie would write
From a book or two
The cobbles in the streets
Walking in the footsteps
Of cultures so deep
Who came here and brewed
A melting pot they called it
Culture
Pain
Hardship
Slavery
Dehumanisation
All formed the music
These tourists come to see
I want to see the layers of ghosts
That trail these streets
Up and down
I want to feel the hearts that broke
And empty their blood through the old saxophone
I listen to the notes
And picture the stories
For really this is where they are
I feel them in my ears
Beating in my head
Vibrating in my chest
I met a man who lives in New Orleans
He taught me the history
Of the city and the music
I went on a guided tour
As a typical tourist would do
I want to learn
So the story in the music
Would reach deeper in my soul
I want to understand
What really comes from here
A culture borne
From a place so layered
A culture non existent
Except for here
With this man Bill
I went from bar to bar
Dancing and jiving
He knew how to listen
He shook his hips
Whipped his hair
Let himself loose with the music
The way they let loose in a time of misery
Music and dance
The place to let the tight feelings go
The people clipped their heels
Grabbed their partners’ hands
Flung their heads as they spun around
The notes of the music pitched so high
I could not help
But clip my heels too
I jumped into the crowd aloft
Spinning and twirling
Flicking and dancing
To music that sent a bar of magic through my soul
What a gift
What a dream
To dance to a jazz band
With a man from New Orleans
Bar after bar we went
Night after night we danced
On the street he met a friend
She hugged him
Asked him how he was
She wore a black-rimmed hat with a feather
Sat in front of a typewriter
I asked what she was writing
She said she turns people’s stories into poems
I asked her for a poem
She asked me what’s on my mind
I told her I want to let go
She quoted my favourite
Leonard Cohen
I told her my story
She captured it in a poem
I gave her the only change I had
I wished I had more to give
Bill had a spare ticket
To a clown party that was happening
He brought me to his apartment
Three other girls he invited
We went in a convoy
From a taxi to a theatre
The costumes of the people
An exhibition of self-expression
A girl in our group
She is a writer
Eyes like a fairy
Voice like a wizard
She knew Joseph Campbell
And so did I
We spoke about myth
And she told me her passion
A musical she was writing
We danced and danced
Squashed in the crowd
That was so tight
It moved as one
The band on stage
Eccentric and wild
Dressed like clowns
Singing like protestors
Metal guitars
Shooting raving notes into the rafters
Vibrating our chests
As we danced and jumped
I hadn’t partied like that since I was twenty-two
Outside the theatre
A man with a bowler hat
We went to his house
He read from an old book
A Russian poet
Whose name I’d never heard
We delved deeply into words and story
Until 5am when the light began to rise
I went back to my host
And slept till nine
I wandered the streets again
And breathed the air
It felt like I’d been here a year
Lora
The writer I met
At the clown party
My gaze upon her
Could not stop
Something so magical
So otherworldly
I could not quite explain it
I embraced her invitation
To talk about story
We spent a day in the trees
We talked through the night
In her sitting room
Sharing poems
Feeling into the words
We read till twilight
Her patterned carpet
And darkened walls
Where three witches
She told me
Used to live
The walls they held
A thousand stories
I sat in her armchair
She read and swayed
Words that only
A wizard could write
She begged me to stay
I told her I’ve booked my train
Bill cried as I left
I said I will come back
I asked myself
What am I doing?
Sitting on the train
That is leaving New Orleans
5 days I spent in this city
The wildness of spirit
The piercing notes
The swaying hips
The flicking hair
The enchanting words
How could so much happen in 5 short days?
The city of the zombie culture
The layers of Jazz and blues
The voodoo slithering through the streets
The wildness of the party
The magic of the people
A whirlwind
A madness
A magic
A fantasy
And now I am on the train
Leaving New Orleans
(The image above is a photo of myself and Lora sitting by a lake in a park in New Orleans)
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