So…I promised a more fun blog, but one just hasn’t come to mind. Oh, never fear, I can always make some smart arse comment or something filled with inappropriate imagery. (I’m NOT the kinda girl one should take home to mother!) BUT I’m (for once) not in the mood for being facetious, I don’t feel like being dark and stormy, or darkly sexual…that doesn’t leave much. In lieu of a jaunty riposte then, how about a poem that tells a story? It’s a little long, but it’s exactly where I want to be and what I want to do right now! And it’s FUN, I promise!!!

Bourbon Street Boots

Knee-high black leather
Sleekly unrepentant
Darkly glowing in the lamplight
The two-inch heel and pointed toe
Sleekly encasing feet and calves
As the zipper swooshes into place-
Heels making a satisfied click
Clack across the marbled lobby
Out the double-doored hotel entrance
And down to the crackled sidewalk.

The boots are intimate with this city
From the shops on Canal St
To just past Jackson Square
To the edges of River Walk
To the late sunlight that slants
Between graveled pull-ins
And darkened alleys
Pressing against frescoed walls
And black ironed balustrade balconies.

The musty smell of ancient buildings wafts through
Rippling curtains parted just enough to allow
Curious peeks into antiqued parlors and
Crammed shops bursting with Voodoo paraphernalia,
A restaurant beckons one block up
And in its terraced courtyard
The boots clatter on paving stones
And scuff mossed cornices-
The heady scent of Creole spices
Infiltrates the musk
Of crevassed stone
Of draping bougainvilleas
Of wetly splashing fountains
Of air slickened with humidity.

Imbued with the restless wildness
That permeates the Quarter
The boots hit the street again
Beneath the jut of haphazard balconies
Stealthily blocking the fading light as darkness
Steals in and shutters strolling pedestrians
And music slithers and seduces
From one end of the street to the other.

‘Abita beers three for one’
Shouts a jolly doorman against
A darkened interior lined by a bar
As stage lights illuminate
An enthusiastic cover band and
The boots begin to shuffle and gyrate
Pressing themselves to the fore of the dancers
To sway seductively back and forth-
After a few beers they are off again
Tripping down the convoluted sidewalk
Where the night crowd has begun its surge,
Carousers interrupting the steady tread
Of the boots in their determined gait.

The sights grow more chaotic
Softened with faint lighting and the swirling
Scent of liquor hanging redolently in the air
As the boots saunter farther into the maelstrom of
Another bar, its occupants spilling
Into the courtyard and street
Where a DJ spins contemporary club music
That vibrates the city’s bones-
Later, calmed and stymied by
The slippery sweetness of Hurricanes
The kick of Hand Grenades
And the pulse of modern rhythms
The boots continue toward their journey’s end.

Thoughtlessly darkness has slid into early morning
And with only hours til daybreak
The boots are restless pounding the walkways
Tripping down the sullied
Sidewalks and pausing to push through
Crowded corners and piled trash
And drunken revelers not hardy enough
To make it through the night.

The boots escape into the calmer ambience of the street’s end
Where blues bars have invited a more sedate crowd
To lounge at café tables and hardwood bars
To liquor drinks replaced with wine
To coffees laced with whiskey
While music still saturates everything
As darkness surrenders his reign to the dawn.

One last stop for the boots-
The famous Café Du Monde
Always crowded and overly lit-
Nutty chicory coffee
Mingling with the stickiness of steaming Beignets
As the sun begins its climb
Across the magnanimous Mississippi-
Illuminating boots tired and creased
Black Bourbon Street boots
Finally ready to call it a night.