Newport Preservation Society





frosted electric light bulb,
lone decoration on a Christmas tree
a trailer truck east of New Orleans

heard about the place from acquaintances
who grew up in the neighborhood where
an official of the agency in a position
to rededicate himself to Creole
or develop another, more natural language,
rules out a communications pay off
for those who can’t follow

instead he wrote a decree
in the middle of a heat wave:

“there were from time to time,
instances in which the modern world would lose itself
like Baghdad in April”

live music and outlandish cocktails high atop
a light-filled space from where visitors can orient themselves
offers memorable photo opportunities of places destroyed
before they are blown completely from memory
by vulgar wind sonnets and ten thousand bombs