It’s Lundi Gras and I’m here
and not there this time
and though I know it’s the way
it has to be this time
my heart feels flattened
for Pancake Day..
(by the way, in honor
of Mardi Gras, IHOP
has free pancakes!)
I made my decision
and it makes perfect sense,
but it’s also true that it’s just
coming ’round that time
again when I need an
infusion of my favorite folks,
friendly faces grinning
ear to ear, swinging hips
into another year.

Look at these two!
Monsieur Matiti Varvil
and Haley Lou..

I love you Haley Lou Haden!

I miss my Panda.
I want to be marching
down Royal
beside this girl again..
Why oh why?

Beloved Miss Lateefah Wright and I
on Ash Wednesday-
all soot besmirched
and tattered and happy.
Her work is amazing-
(dolls and vessels and belles)
do go look and see..

Also sorely missed is dear Myrtle (Von Damitz, III)
I want to go see her show up at
Barrister’s Gallery – it’s called, 
“I’m Running Out of Coffee and it
Smells Like Rotten Onions”
Girl, don’t I know it!
This is my favorite holiday-
I wait for it all year long..
I feel ill to be missing it.
I have dreams about this,
being stuck on a sidestreet,
or in someone’s apartment
hearing the drums, the parade..

Oh I want to go, go, go!
I’ve already decided that
even if Mardi Gras is the
earliest yet next year
(February 5th, my word!)
I’m not going to miss another one.

The soul needs a bacchanal,
the filth and the fury
swamp-gut and helter-swelter.
The prance and pratfall,
the cathexis and caterwaul
sure to follow me down the
street should I go there.
Down to the river
to weep and watch
the light glint off of dirty water,
weeping for friends gone and dead,
for silver daggers loosed and lost,
dreams and memories and ways.
I have to dance and dance
to remember,
to hold it all here.
The sun’s too bright
and I have this polaroid
of us laughing and laughing
hysterically in the street
last year.
My headdress is falling off
and the parade hasn’t even started yet.
I just saw Helen for the last time ever,
and in a few blocks I’ll start to
become confused as to what
everyone is doing here,
scary, too bright, loud,
costume pinching
I’m bleeding and
I need to pee.
The bad dream
of being lost in
the crowd
shots ring out
and it’s too late
to save anyone.
Tomorrow I’m going to chase
the lingering ghosts and cobwebs
out of our house. Try to breathe in
gold and out blood, to focus and
radiate and see
the thing under the thing
beneath the thing.
Tomorrow is Mardi Gras
morning and I won’t still
be awake half dazed coming on
to the jitter, the slow wave
and wash and warp of
strange magic.
Or maybe I will.
I guess we’ll be
jazzin’ come rain or come shine,
riding our bicycles down Rosewood,
dominos and transplanted po-boys,
chartreuse and tambourine.
Big Chief Kevin
of the Flaming Arrows
is going to play at Ruta Maya
at midnight..
I’ll be there.