This poem was written by Richard Troy
Dirt and sound all around,
People walking by,
Trumpets flaring out their sound,
Everyone getting high.
Natchez plays her calliope,
And pigeons litter the square,
The clop of hoofbeats overcome me,
As tourists ride a mare.
I watch the flow of people passing through Cabildo alley,
Their number being much too much to make a decent tally.
Up the way, a band can be heard to play a gentle tune,
As the sound enters the crowd, it bends and curves and changes,
Vocalizing feelings felt throughout the city's core.
The space between the people in the crowd soon becomes quite nil,
And the movement also increases.
The flowing is quite profound, and it never ceases.
Up Dauphine the Drag Queens start to play with themselves,
And put on quite a show,
Across the way Cafe Du Monde begins to overflow.
Beignet sugar spilling over.
Kids leaving can be seen to have confection,
Where only mothers seem to know.
Down river a mist is seen, as it gently rises,
Only to unshroud the day, and bring us great surprises.
Through the light of this bright day,
many spirits meet and tangle, in a joyous way.
For in the bowls of this great city,
lives one heart, one mind, one ditty.
...To fully understand the poem, it might help to know a few things about the City. Briefly: Natchez is a real original steam powered riverboat from the middle of the last century. The Cabildo is the former seat of government of all Spanish territories held in the New World - a modest 17th century building in the heart of the quarter. And a beignet is a type of hole-less doughnut of French origins... traditionally served smothered in confectioners sugar...
I wrote this poem while sitting on the river bank --atop the levee at a place now called The Moon Walk - so I was a bit above it all, looking down on Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter, though today, sadly, from that location one cannot see very much of the Quarter.
RtLH