Poet Paul Pines, a poetry world acquaintance of mine sent me his latest poetry collection, and granted me permission to reprint a poem.  Here is his statement that he sent the LYRICAL:

A WORD ABOUT NEW ORLEANS VARIATIONS & PAROS OUROBOROS

EMBODIED IN WHISTLER’S BLUE

 

My love of New Orleans goes back to my first sight of it as a twenty-three year old galley man of a freighter on a voyage Gulfwise. Then there were no doors on the bars on Magazine Street that didn’t swing, and buskers danced or sang on every corner. I first felt the mystery of Paris shortly thereafter when my sense of time and space collapsed while crossing the Pont L’Archiveche. These two cities are forever twined in my mind by an underlying sense of color and tone that I tried to capture in the poem “Whistler’s Blue/ A Nocturne”, after a painting by the artist who was no stranger to both places, or this field and tone which is captured in his use of  the color blue.