Summertime
in Louisiana's Big Easy
bass are jumpin'
and the cypress grow high
no your daddy ain't rich
but your ma's not bad-lookin'
so fish a little bayou
won't you try
some of these evenings
they're gonna rise up flyin'
and they'll spread their wings
as pelicans take to the sky
but 'til next mornin'
there ain't no one can charm you
like Acadians or Cajun standin' by
With apologies to Edwin DuBose Heyward (1885 — 1940)
There's nothing easy about living in the big easy.
Skinny dogs and two-legged spiders
Spinning violence down salty streets
hurricanes drooling upon
below sea level hospitality///
once a year all the misery covered up
by whisky breasts and plastic beads.
Chicken feet clawing their way out from purple corners.
Rock faces eating crawdads and unfiltered cigarettes.
Puffs of blue smoke making love to Marie Laveau's ghost.
Onto the front porches of sweaty plantations
Into the black hearts of those magnificent jazzy tombstones.
Death is much easier than living in the big easy.
But not nearly as much fun.
The Big Easy called to me
Packed my bag and went to see
New Orleans a place to eat
Took a stroll down Bourbon Street.
Summer night a sound of jazz
I'm bopping along full of sass
Hearing syncopated blues
Music followed to rendezvous.
Have a date to eat soul food
Hungry and thirsty in the mood
The Big Easy helped me unwind
Shrimp gumbo tasting mighty fine.
Magnolia-honey air, heavy with heat
Kudzu vines twining, knitting the city
Spanish moss masks the old hoyden,
and she manage to think herself pretty
Shutters, and fans lazily turning
keep the suffocating heat of afternoon at bay
Lanais and balconies, sanctuary given
Folks resting until it is cool enough to play
Languid lazy persistence of mosquitoes
Hands too enervated to swat them away
Down Bourbon a honky tonk is whispering
Birds and butterflies hide from the heat of day
Bawdy houses and mansions - quaint
Charm oozes from the Big Easy's pores
Secrets and antiquities languish behind
ancient shops with their secret doors
Now - a muddy ruin, wiped from the earth
No more Mardi Gras or ladies teas - or riots
Just a flow muddy rubble and water rising
Big Easy is dying as its chaos quiets
Can she rise again as the south did long ago?
Can she pick up her skirts refuse to fade?
A southern lady is a strong woman - defiant
Under her petticoats, Big Easy, quality-made!
THE BIG EASY
everyone had eaten
by the time he
appeared
plates cleared
left-over’s
boxed
Cabernet
Chardonnay
with
drained
vacant
faces
no poised apology
guilty neurology
condescending
cheek kissing
with suave
masculine
fragrance
slipping
into
blasé
mode
up there
her heaven
down below
his
perception
she his big
easy
he
her
dire
needy
obsession © Kim van Breda
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