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New Orleans
by Glenn CurrierTeetering on a tightrope of fear
I sat staring into my vacant future
until the bus filled with other tremblings
arrived at the gray federal building
permanent in its resolve
to swallow up male adolescents
and send them to Vietnam.
My life was hanging
between my fresh B.A.
and either green fatigues or graduate school.
The lady bureaucrat told me
of the finest failure of my 24 years.
I didn't pass the physical
and then she said, "You can smile."
Which I did.
I had fallen from the tightrope
and now was bouncing
on the safety net.
Three hours to kill before the bus ride
back to L.S.U in Baton Rouge,
I walked the French Quarter.
I breathed in my new hope
and the beeraroma wafting from alleys.
The Spanish wrought iron work on balconies
and the long shuddered windows were sheer poetry.
I soaked in gratitude.
Over the years I returned to the city
to its insane and glorious night life
walked the sidewalks of Tulane
knelt in St. Louis Cathedral for my cousin's wedding
sipped café-au-lait from the Café du Monde
sat before a caricature artist
reveled in a world's fair
crossed the Mississippi on a cable
and drank too many hurricanes in Pat O'Briens.
And now no rum drink
could assuage my sadness
as the city swims in chaos
and a brown toxic soup
that coats the edges of sanity. 09/02/2005 Posted on 09/02/2005
Copyright © 2025 Glenn Currier
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Charlie Morgan on 09/02/05 at 01:50 PM ...glenn, an angst-soothing measure your words are...you touch on the misery[that webster's gonna have to redefine]with a loving hand-held heart of-- gone! but not forgotten--and still a part of me kind of thingeee...moments that drrraaaag on wonderfully and yet yin-yang is flux, not liked, not wanted but...wonderfully written of tragic notions...peace, chaz |
| Posted by Maureen Glaude on 09/02/05 at 01:56 PM New Orleans is one of the places I'd always wanted to see, and your poem takes me back to why I did. I love it, and grieve it all at once, what's happened. Fine tribute. |
| Posted by Max Bouillet on 09/02/05 at 03:48 PM Hopefully, this will not be a eulogy and we as poets will once again be able to write of the living human saga that is New Orleans. |
| Posted by Jim Benz on 09/02/05 at 04:31 PM This piece is rich - with imagery, with the context of your life, with the words that convey your feelings over the whole mess. Very well done. |
| Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 09/03/05 at 01:30 AM You put perspective on this ongoing tragedy. YOur last stanza powerful in its restrained tone of unbelief and grief. |
| Posted by Charles E Minshall on 09/03/05 at 03:29 AM A-h-h-h New Orleans. Your poem does bring back
some fond memories. What a shame to see it destroyed and so many people displaced or killed....Charlie
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| Posted by Mary Ellen Smith on 09/03/05 at 03:54 AM Thank you Glenn for sharing your memory with us... |
| Posted by Bruce W Niedt on 09/09/05 at 06:29 PM Outstanding, Glenn. I've never been there so I don't feel qualified to write anything as personal and heartfelt as this about the tragedy down there. You did it very effectively, with a knockout ending.... d:-) |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 09/10/05 at 04:29 PM Excellent choice for POTD Glenn. I really like how you recall and express the New Orleans of the past so vividly, then remind us at the end of the tragedy that has befallen it. We all feel yours and others' pain, even those of us far away, have never been there. |
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