Judson Evans
Postcards from Bob—
Creole Gardens Guest House
New Orleans, Louisiana
Nov. 26, 1997
Dear Mardi Gras Queens,
I’m sitting here not drinking five minutes from Bourbon St.,
full to the brim with homemade affirmations:
- May I have the courage to adopt uselessness
as its own solution - May I remain unhindered in my misdirection
- May I luxuriate in the stickiness of failed places
- May my adhesions be to buoyant things
All I can think about here is the cemetery scene in Easy
Rider: Clue #1 that Captain America is really gay. The sexy
non-sex scene between Peter Fonda and the young hooker.
I once had a “girlfriend” who turned tricks with straight
high school boys. She guided me gently through a night
of drug psychosis that left me waking up on a golf course.
reading epitaphs
through the fisheye lens
of acid
Your tortured tour guide,
Bayou Bob
Note: This is part of a sequence of haibun that take the form of postcards. “They are written by a deeply conflicted persona on a cross-country trip and addressed to a mysterious couple identified only by the myriad playful nicknames bestowed upon them (‘Dear Benevolent Geniuses,’ ‘Dear Conscientious Objectors,’ ‘Dear Ladies of the Canyon’), always with sardonic campiness,” the author writes.
About the Author
Judson Evans is a full-time Professor of Liberal Arts at Berklee College of Music, where he teaches poetry workshops on haiku, haibun, and renku, and a visual studies course on Paleolithic cave art. His collaborative book of lyric poems responding to cave painting, Chalk Song, was published by Lilly Press, Boston, in fall 2021. He is haibun co-editor for Frogpond.