...what I sometimes call Bent Synchronicity on the Back Hand Path. (BS on the BHP) Auspicious.

Regarding bug behavior, the day before Katrina made landfall, almost 12 hrs exactly, the Math Shopper and I were walking my dog Flora on the neutral ground (what we in New Orleans call the grassy median) between Elysian Fields, smoking a nice joint beneath the trees, kickin' logic theorems around like they'z jail-house punks when I spied a dozen fat trademark New Orleans Nightcrawler cock roaches lined up on a tree end to end, nose to tail, completely still but for their long antennae that wriggled about either side like fishing poles off a parade of longboats. These legendary beasts usually stand about 3 1/2 inches long X 2 inches wide? Though rarely seen in broad daylight, you can actually hear them walk across a street. When you do see them (and you will see them) at night, crawlin' across the banquette in the Quarters you must stop, look & listen. More often than not the roach will stop too, as if...considering you. If you somehow find the need, gonads or ova to mount one when it charges, or even manage to Pop It under both feet, every person within a block will duck from the sound of gunfire. {perhaps I embellish juuuust a bit:) But there they were, lined up and down the side of a Live Oak tree. "What the fuck?!?", we wondered. What if they notice us? Should we run now or just back away slowly, no sudden movements? Can they even see in broad sunlight? Aren't they blind, like so many in this city who find themselves somehow awake in the middle of the day? And hey! Why that particular side of the tree anyway and why nearly six feet off the ground? Duuuuherah...it turned out. In the aftermath, we realized from the various & sundry debris nailed into the tree's windward side that the roaches had aligned themselves aerodynamically on the tree's leeward side to ride out the storm's approach, exactly. Bugs know...or at least next time we see nature going so oddly with her own grain perchance we should, errra, pay more attention?.
Ya' t'ink?

Suite Marigny

I can smell jazmine

covering this morning

like a wide cotten bed sheet
of white class lace.
And I taste
her breath of coffee
and cigarettes
and Maryjane
and Bloody Mary coughing
on the banquette by the gate

of this courtyard in the Marigny.
I lay me down my soul to sleep.
But the heat won't let me.
so I lie
awake
and dream...

...of a dog park,
well, a bald green lot
with two trees
beside the coffee warehouse.
You can see the bags
loading in off the docks.
You can feel it on your skin
when they roast it up.
There the people gather
with their very best friends
and drink in the shade
and talk with the wind
while this flat bywater sunrise
finds them
laying down
their entire lives.

There was a time
when all these houses built from barge wood
gave strong men right lively hood
as they flooded in
from the river.

You may know the sounds
of unbroken belief
with a bucket of seed
and the pigeons beside you
as you slide down
the wet stones of the street
to a little cafe'
named for the goddess of flowers
where the Eight Ball lines up
with a Lucky 13
and Snake Eyes and Diamonds
and Demons in Chains
and the Angel waits
for St. Ann to begin
with her mask made of sorrow
and her laugh made of sin.

So when I die
do please carry me
down Royal Street
with a brass band
and a second line beat
by the courtyards in the Marigny
i lay me down
my soul to sleep