Giovanni Malito
On Bourbon Street, August 1987
Legs swinging and breasts cascading
over thresholds where the food is
fire-eater Creole anything you like,
big risk gumbo and that Cajun popcorn
that explodes into your gut, and shouts
for bucketfuls of Harry Hurricanes.
This is a hot, hot, blazing hot street
that swelters in jazz and sweats blues,
bleeds rock and raucous Irish folk tunes
in a rising cacophony that serenades
the continuum of odd couples and other tourists
who pretend – Here, there is nothing new.
On a corner, there’s an old man standing
in front of an old and soiled banana box,
projecting and flickering his long tongue
pointier than any frog’s, toad’s
or lizard’s tongue as he dances
on the money that overflows the box.
The Pope is due in New Orleans soon
but probably not here, Bourbon Street, where
there can be no one god, and where no one
man nor woman can ever be conspicuous,
where even the Pope will be heavily challenged
by some very stiff competition for attention.
Page(s) 78
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