New Orleans:
In Memoriam, Everette Maddox, 1941-1980

Almost fifty years ago there was a flock of would-be poets working on Master's degrees at the University of Alabama. Perhaps the best of the lot was Everette Maddox. I eventually heard that he removed to New Orleans, trebled the amount of undiluted Black Jack Daniels that he consumed, and ultimately managed to drink himself to death. Some of his drinking buddies arranged for him to have a traditional New Orleans jazz funeral.

My mother's Aunt Addie from Covington, Louisiana, told me -- when I ten years old -- that there is a gateway to Hell in the French Quarter.

Both my grandfathers were born in New Orleans. My Grandfather O'Rourke took me to New Orleans twice before I was in first grade.

This place is full of poets,
And there really is no question why.
The City is most picturesque.

In the Vieux Carre,
The humid air is redolent
Of Creole, Cajun, Dixieland:
Marie Laveau is, was,
And shall be
Voodoo Queen
Until the saints go marching
Down Saint Peter's Street,
One-way down to Preservation Hall.

And then there are Big Easy colors, smells:
Muted scarlet crawfish,
Boiled in magic herbs and spice;
The mellow amber of pralines;
The pearliness of oyster shell;
The black of wrought-iron balconies;
Aroma of that tawny brew,
Cafe-au-lait at dawn,
Sipped by faux poets
At Cafe du Monde.

And the names --My God,
I love them:
Blanche Badon,
Jean Patout,
Falvey Marlarcher and Barry Prudhomme,
John Taylor-Charbonnet,
Nellie B. Fazende.
Catherina Montlemar,
Delesseps Morrison and Moon Landrieux,
And Jean Lafitte, the pirate king
Who helped Old Andy Jackson earn
The cast-iron mount
On rearing steed
That guards his ancient square.

I chant the streets as well:
Pirate's Alley, Carondelet,
St. Charles and Rue Royale,
South Rampart Street,
Basin Street and Music Street,
Lee Circle, Claiborne, and Canal,
Chartes, Terpsichore, and Calliope,
Magazine, Desire, Elysian Fields --
Sweet Jesus,
Are the mailmen poets too?

There are, of course, more somber tones,
The necessary discords,
The chiaroscuro patterning
Of dark and light:
The sleazy shills of Bourbon Street
Enticing innocence into dim bars
Where hard-eyed strippers
Strut their wilted stuff;
And -- oh! -- the precious faggots
Go mincing by, arm-in-tattooed-arm
Past gaping travellers from Michigan and Maine.
And -- yeah! -- gorgeous queens
Flirting with tipsy boys from Iowa and Kansas.

There is no question.
This city's picturesque.
It is a town for poets. . .

And for drunks.

I speak -- alas! -- of Maddox
Whom, as I have lately learned,
Forsook his gift of verse
And drank to death his singing,
Who lies quite fine and private
In the vast and empty spaces of his tomb.

He did not notice
That they blocked Rue Bourbon
For the passing
Of his mournful entourage,
Nor could he hear
The joyful jazz band's din
As they retreated from his grave
And strolled and strutted
Back into the world.

-- Warren F. O'Rourke, 1990 (revised in 2013)