Louisiana

They found the Ark of the Covenant when the waters began to recede
You’ve never seen New Orleans look the world more in the teeth
Not since the Daily Crescent in 1848 set its type into print
The world was always looking for the ink in the fold to indent

Butter lamps and the luxuriant of America pulled to the rivers edge
Slaves from Haiti and Africa moving towards Rampart Street’s ledge
Buffalo meat hanging from the street lamps and sold through the door
Followed by a caravan of murderers, politicians, thieves and whores

Sunsets when the masters hide in the field and the slaves embark
When the hail falls like a lariat and the smells carry it into the dark
The berth of Ship Island covered in the ashes of Marie Leveau
Even today all the cypress know to turn from black to blue


Throw the boat astern even hell burns
Cast off the lines and lean into the turn
Louisiana, Louisiana even heaven can turn


- Chris Mansel

LIstening Post

A void of apprehension
Orchestras of technique and noise
Reversed upon the learning of speech
Irritating the ventilation of sound escaping

The wing-span of birds considered and measured
the lapping of a brook controlled by movement of stones
to refit the narrative of nature, to reuse the listener
the rights of our brethren in the asylums
who were taught magic and dismissed at their peak
to destroy the tune bound by the white whale

the invocation of a seizure
the choreography of a starless night
the sound of sunken ships jostling about in the dark Atlantic

that is the sound, that is the music, that is the poetry I hear…


in my soul.



- Chris Mansel

The Relief Boat (Oren's Aboard)

Ten days in the kingdom of evenings falling
A new shepherd lies down by the creek bed
His decisions are like widows speaking in a dream
And all he sees is what rolls around in his head
All he sees is what rolls around in his head

Tree touch the garden floor and the rain never falls
Insects in a sea circus are corpulent in their dismay
Dreams are like shadows of kitchens on narrow walls
The weather ashore is garnered even as it loses its way

Buggered and dirked by a Thessalonians darker side
A fellow traveler with worse rolling around in his head
The custom being to kill his children and sleep with his wives
He travels until he reaches the creek bed and goes inside


- Chris Mansel

Presence (After reading a poem by Hank Lazer)

12:00 am. the day after Easter, Jesus’ birthday
my brother in law sleeping behind me
recovering from surgery, already suffering from Multiple Sclerosis
cancer and other deformities, his spirits high

the hiding of Easter eggs he watched from
the sliding door in the living room
recalls the wreck we saw yesterday on the way home from Birmingham
out of his head in pain, going in and out of sleep he saw the body
on the stretcher with the sheet pulled over it
hearing on the news 4 U.S. soldiers dead in Iraq

delivered the day before we left to go to Birmingham
IMPORVISATIONS by Vernon Frazer 697 pages
Kind words from Frazer in the package
My words seem to matter but only to the point
When they cease

- Chris Mansel

Vice and Vengeance

The dead burn as well as the living; a man who is afraid of fire would say this. But as he rolls in his squalor the world follows in the steps placed before them. The working class, the laborers, those below the poverty line revel in the hard work of the passing day, they take pride in their ruin, they pass as they are born. If you think you can defeat them your life is as meaningless as the squalor in where you reside.

- Chris Mansel

9th Street InGloria

3:46 in the morning and the tide has shifted

(gravel burnt by cigarette lighter
collected and hot glued to masonite)

the image is of a hotel window being removed by
force

black paint is applied and human hair from hair cuts
is attached to the corners of the piece

words are inscribed detailing the contents of the room

3:48 in the morning


- Chris Mansel

Who This Time

Limb resting on the back left tire
and a rain falling stirring up the dust
someone said a killer is worth his hire
here I am with a knife ready to cut
Mississippi Alabama Tennessee line
Sunday morning and the night’s not done
Bodies sewn together with old fence line
Sunday morning and the night’s not done

Head on the savannah road sign
Happens when a killer gets in his wine
Who was it this time
Who was it this time

Trees in the garden touching the ground
Window looks out on a box of shells
Down on the lake you hear the sound
Of a man shooting into his own hell
Horses come and stomp out the fire
You can hear the bodies hit the ground
How much blood to call you back home
You can hear the bodies hit the ground

Head on the savannah road sign
Happens when a killer gets in his wine
Who was it this time
Who was it this time

- Chris Mansel

You Don't Want Her After You

This is what she said to you
Bust that woman up in her head
Pull out all that shit she said
You don’t want me after you
You don’t want me after you

She come up the road one night
Swinging a hammer in her hand
Said I’m looking for my man
You don’t want me after you
You don’t want me after you

Hell come over the banks today
Everything she owned floating away
She reach her hand up to the lord and say
You don’t want me after you
You don’t want me after you

Chorus:

Fist like iron cold like steel
Hate like a gasket bust its seal
You don’t want her after you
You don’t want her after you


- Chris Mansel

Keep The Devil Back In His Room

There’s twelve snakes in the hollow
Guess what they’d say
There’s twelve snakes in the hollow
Guess what they’d say
Twelve snakes in the hollow
Getting fat on sin
Twelve snakes in the hollow
Can’t fit no more in

Devil hired a woman
To give me kids
Devil hired a woman
What do you think they did
Devil hired a woman
To give me kids
Devil hired a woman
You know the lord forbid

Judas kept on walking
Till he got into the fire
Judas kept on walking
You’d think he’d retire
Judas kept on walking
Kept this kids in the room
Judas kept on walking
Spread’em with a butcher’s broom

Chorus:
Got to slip the ash back in the tomb
Keep the devil back in his room
Got to keep the devil back in his room


- Chris Mansel

You're A Shooting Star (for Hank WIlliams Sr.)

I was drinking on the grave of someone I never knew
When the feeling overcame me and I thought of you
No more lonesome in your life you reached out to me
And I wonder if heaven is as cold as where you lie

The flowers don’t grow in this corner of the field
The grass is too poor I think for the rain to hit
I wonder if this bottle will disturb your last grace
And I wonder if hell is as warm as the sun up in the sky

Tears brought me to this abandoned cemetery today
As I drove along I thought of what I would say
You were the only daughter of a man to drunk to stand
And I wonder if the prison I put you in bears my name

Chorus:

Tears fall as thick as tar
I wonder my darling just where you are
I miss you so much you’re never that far
Don’t you know that you’re a shooting star

- Chris Mansel

preserved

The driveway of J.D. Salinger's house.


That the great men seek silence, that the myth is more than the truth, we should all allow for grace to inhabit our curiousity.


- Chris Mansel

The Cypress Are Touching The Ground

Lost in the century the dream awoke on a train
There were ribbons flying and there was rain
From the everglades to the pacific stormy winds
The airports were shut down by well-armed men

The Mt. Rushmore cliffs went gray under the light
Middle America stood on the front lawns that night
The waters in New Orleans rose from corkscrew heights
The countries work force is moving like ghosts in plain sight

I’ve seen an Alaskan sunset from Canada’s skies
I’ve been asked what have I done with my life
I’ve tried to do good but some wrong has led my hand
Couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t take a stand

Chorus:

The cypress are touching the ground
If they fall it won’t make a sound
The cypress are touching the ground


- Chris Mansel

Up The Levee Way (for Jake Berry

Where daddy going mama
Where he been
Going on a killing
He’s going again
Took his shotgun mama
Took his hand ax blade
Going up the levee
To the parson’s shade

Got to see about a woman
Cut her children up
Threw them in the well
Then covered it up
All kind of evil mama
Down the levee way
Daddy been working
All down that way

Here comes daddy mama
His clothes all wet
He been to the river
Up to his chest
Daddy’s cursing at the river
Swinging his hand axe blade round
Daddy said he don’t want us round
Better get to the levee while the water’s down

Chorus:

Here comes evil up the levee way
Trouble comes floating up this way
Mama why daddy acting this way

- Chris Mansel