New Orleans 2026

1.15.2026, 17:28

We are in fact in New Orleans, LA. Hotel room downtime. Ice on the rime, throw the bums a dime. Hey, have you ever seen one of these? Circle on the leg. Hanging out with his dog outside Rouse’s market, prices on that liquor surprisingly fair.

My wife in her robe. Chilly out there, that breeze. Friends over at Fritzel’s, in the corner by the band, someone else about to land. I’m happy where I am. Later—soon—we’ll go out again for another dozen on the half shell.

1.16.2026

8:41. Café Fleur de Lis filling up now. Two-plus miles on the treadmill earlier…

Lobby time, excellent. Who else is in this hotel? We await the arrival. The arrival of. Bag-laden, late of St. Louis, turn six into eight. The front desk is not in the front but it is a desk, albeit a tiny one. She’s moving the arrivals through, sporadic, rushed down I-10 from Louis Armstrong I-T-L.

My wife sips her coffee. Someone says, “Try Perk.” The sound of sanding from behind the hung plastic sheets obscuring, hiding, blocking The Real Front Desk. Breakfast was shrimp & grits, side of has browns, and a triple stack of buttermilk pancakes dappled with powdered sugar.

We await the arrival. The arrival of. Who else, whoever else is in this hotel. 10:30.

I haven’t taken enough photos. Texas oil wedding, shifting ice. I don’t have a book with me except this notebook so I guess I’ll have to keep writing or be bored. The wedding party, or part of it, was in here earlier, creating a din, a hubbub, the ladies in their dresses, a crowd. Now the lobby is virtually empty and I am wondering where everyone went.

A couple walked in, trailing a bellhop who rolled in their bags. The bellhop asked them, “Where y’all flying in from?” I couldn’t hear the reply but the bellhop followed up, “What kind of weather does Morocco have right now?” Morocco!

We thought it was not so busy at Acme Oyster last night. We thought the service was good. The guy who waited on us. Michael? He’s off today but he’ll be there Saturday, Sunday, Monday. We’ll be back once more before we leave.

There’s someone in here now talking about money lost or left behind in a traditional IRA. She’s moving it into a Roth, she says, paying the taxes, I guess. She said the account wasn’t doing anything for twenty years. She seems to think the account wasn’t performing because it was a traditional IRA, not a Roth. But that doesn’t make sense. The money must never have been invested. There’s nothing you can’t do in a traditional IRA that you can do in a Roth. The growth is tax free forever in a Roth but you have to pay the taxes on the contribution, which isn’t true for a “regular” IRA. Anyway!

Last night at Acme I had a dozen raw oysters, the fried seafood platter, an Andy Gator, and a Purple Haze. I liked the raw oyster plate better at Felix’s, where the oyster on the half shell were laid out on ice. But the hushpuppies were better at Acme. And the fries. And it was nice to get pitchers of beer at Acme. The fried fish and the fried oysters were both scrumptious.

Books purchased so far: Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, the first installment he published in what became a much longer work spanning the rest of his life. I have a hardback of the full Leaves of Grass but I could travel with this one if I wanted, although many of my favorite poems in Leaves of Grass are some of the poems at the very end of the full version, equivalent to the Book of Revelations in the Bible. Then, I found a book of poems by Charles Baxter, whom I didn’t realize wrote poetry, his notoriety ascribing to his excellent body of short stories and the novella, “Believers.” Finally, I picked up a poetry anthology called The New Naked Poetry. Emphasis on “new.” I have an anthology by the same name but what I found yesterday must be a second volume in the anthology. A lot of the names are the same: Galway Kinnell, William Stafford, Denise Levertov, Robert Bly, James Wright, et al.

1.17.2026, 8:06

My eyes are big bags hanging off the side of my face…

A few expenses. $3, accordion player on Royal. $5, skeleton guitar guy. $20, Oyster Man. $219, round of snacks and drinks at Patula. $2, club soda. $30, St. Roch oysters.

List for the next visit to Rouse’s. Vodka (handle), mixer, six-pack of amber beer, chips, juice (?), kombucha (?)

I am remembering images and moments from last night. The walk back from St. Roch in the dark. A longer walk. Dane talking to the pool player. The Calico cat. A frenetic, loud, tight Frenchman St.

Missing: Hugo, my dad. There is still a heaviness. I enjoyed standing and smoking outside of Fritzel’s. Then hiding in plain sight in the Bourbon Orleans lobby.

Only two or three items left on the must-do list. Muffuletta. Po Boy. Audubon Park. Tanker on the Mississippi.

8:40. Wrapping up breakfast. Get outta here, stop by Rouse’s. Coffee water, goodbye. I’m still nursing a cut on the side of my mouth caused by catching the edge of an oyster shell. I keep irritating the cut, opening it back up. I’ve gotten some balm from B but this is a Vaseline job and we don’t have any. Time to pay, via hand-held kiosk, the way things are done these days.

Once Again Out

And once again out
into a new night
Brash by the heap
of a vagrant who has
cuddled with him the
dog you wish you had

Time to think, to
lie and to breathe, to
loaf a little, let the
organs heal up, stanched
by a reprieve of the
clock’s making, inexorable
the endless beginnings

Light through the clouds,
guitar and tombstone silent,
a stage erected in the street
right where we used to meet
to stand and have a smoke
our hair unwashed
our eyes awoke

Confidence, a cornstalk fence
morning is behind us
to lurk and wait for night
is the best offense

If I Were a Poet

And if I were a poet,
when would I go about
being one? Beneath
the blaring sun? Caught
out on the walk in a
ceaseless wind? Or on
the dark cobbles the
the sun rescinds?

Sit and feel my liver.
Step out to the ending river
Listen to the music, a tip held out
from the pocket of a giver…

If I had been reading Rilke during the last few months of Hugo’s life, it would have meant that those would not have been the last few months of his life.

It’s right now, day three, when I ask myself what I’m doing here and why I wanted to be here for another three days.

1.17.26

Objectives. Rest up, hand out more tips to street musicians, get more photos. Read. Write. Sip vodka. Hang out with…people. Sit in the lobby. Hydrate. Get ready to run in the morning? I’m already losing steam, steeped in ambivalence. 10:44.

Haven’t heard much from my mom. It’s cold back in St. Louis today, flurries there.

What would I like?
What would I like?
Would I like what I like?
Or what I would like to like?
Like would like to like a little.
Like would like some peanut brittle.
Peanut brittle if you please.
Like those peanuts, like the breeze.
The breeze would like to breeze a little,
the breeze would like to play the fiddle.
The fiddle would like to solve this riddle,
which I would like to like from beginning
to end and all through the middle. 11:21.

Everyone who was out there then is now gone. Only the building and their streets remain.

I am playing hooky, truant. I didn’t even bother to call in sick. Who needs brunch, or booze, when you have books? I am only kidding of course. Cue the parade, cue the queue. Who doesn’t need to eat? Who would pass on a drink? Not me, said I to the crow. “What birds are those?” someone asked, “Does anybody know?” And I had to be religious because I said in quick response, “Man, those are only pigeons.”