Category: New Orleans

Morning Meditation, New Orleans6 Comments

Demons & Angels on an August Morning

Charlotte Hamrick

August is my least favorite month. I anticipate it with dread. August is a long stretch of steamy melancholy, the month of Katrina, Gustav and Isaac amplifying thoughts of evacuation, endurance and plagues thrown down upon us. August is the month of monitoring the waves off Africa, of getting serious about stockpiling water and food, of closing the storm shutters and battening down the hatches, of deciding whether to stay or go. It’s the month we evacuated three different times, of wall to wall traffic, of driving like hell into the unknown and worrying about the left behind. It’s the … Continue reading Demons & Angels on an August Morning

New Orleans4 Comments

Open the Drapes

Charlotte Hamrick

I didn’t want to believe What we believe in those rooms: That we are blessed, letting go, Letting someone, anyone, Drag open the drapes and heave us Back into our blinding, bright lives. ~Tracy K. Smith, exerpt from The Speed of Belief I love Tracy K. Smiths book “Life On Mars” and keep it, along with two or three others, on my bedside table where I can easily find it and read and reread the beautiful words inside. I like this passage. Sometimes we need a little help dragging open the drapes to let in the creative light. This week … Continue reading Open the Drapes

New Orleans12 Comments

Telemetry, 3rd Floor

Charlotte Hamrick

BONG. BONG. BONG…………..beep! I’ve forgotten how to sleep all I can think is scrambled eggs and biscuits Beep! Beep!! Beep!!! I rub my feet together but sleep won’t come Are 3 beeps more urgent than 1? _____________________ I spent last night in the hospital with a loved one where I got about 45 minutes of sleep all night. This morning I feel zombified but, on the bright side, I wrote three poems and began a short story/flash fiction during those sleepless hours. This one is all about last night. Poem shared on dVerse Poet’s Pub, an online community where poets … Continue reading Telemetry, 3rd Floor

New Orleans14 Comments

Tenacity’s Eyebrows

Charlotte Hamrick

Tenacity has salt and pepper eyebrows with a life of their own, his brain runs faster than his mouth, words tumble out falling consonents over vowels, impaling themselves on spikey exclamation points, snagging on commas and dragging ellipses.Tenacity’s eyebrows struggle to keep up with his mouth, each black hair straining against its follicle, eager to run the obstacle course, sprinting over the spikey points and hopscotching through the ellipses, persuing the riotous words but the white hairs, ah, the white hairs lie with confidence cool and calm because they know how Tenacity earned his name and that soon all these … Continue reading Tenacity’s Eyebrows

New Orleans6 Comments

Wood Hill

Charlotte Hamrick

I still have your oak leaf pressed in a book between yellowing pages While in the yellowing pages of my memory lyrics still sometimes swirl, “close your eyes and think of me and soon I will be there…”, as pages of gleaming metal and bright paint turn, BSA, Triumph, Honda, Suzuki fingertips lightly grazing, hard cherry candy shared between not-quite-touching lips hidden in an overhead compartment of rumpled quilts that smell of miles traveled over sand, desert, high sweet meadows, to red hills and dirt roads lined with pine trees and wide silence You question my loyalty as she lies … Continue reading Wood Hill