(November 28, 1983)

A trip to New Orleans
A Latin City, African City, American City, European City
Begun with a plan
Now growing laissez fare.

Fan on the land
following geography
Port – looking out to the greater world
A Place so strong in its character
the country beyond its sway is but a dream.

Wharves and rivers,
decay
food/habitat/architecture/climate/geography/ritual
intertwined

Home to jazz, to zydeco –
Native music
A melting pot of all cultures.

Food and drink so strongly its own,
Food – native; local.
as those distant lands.
Catholicism—pageantry, festivals, carnival
Bacchus – Dionysius
Truly springtime is the time to awaken
the desires, the yearnings of the flesh, of the soul
to rise, in dance and song, in revelry.

A Place
to travel, to give thanks
to travel to arise; to live; to be alive!

And leaving New Orleans is to leave a dream
of sensual delight.
To return to a media generated chimera
of distorted perception
of life without mystery or magic
A ghost image without spirit or soul
viewed only in mirrors