Lake Pontchartrain Causeway over the Pontchartrain Lake joining New Orleans with Mandeville, Louisiana (United States)

It was one fine March morning, 

I bid New Orleans Adieu

And I took the road to Jackson Town, 

my fortune to renew

I cursed all foreign money, 

no credit could I gain

Which filled my heart with a longing for, 

the Lakes of Ponchartrain

I stepped on board of a railroad car 

beneath the morning sun

I rode the rods till evening 

and I laid me down again

All strangers there no friends to me 

'til a dark girl towards me came

And I fell in love with the Creole Girl, 

by the Lakes of Ponchartrain

Song by Christie Moore

Crescent City Connection over the Mississipi River in New Orleans, Louisiana (United States)

starving there, sitting around the bars,
and at night walking the streets for hours,
the moonlight always seemed fake
to me, maybe it was,
and in the French Quarter I watched
the horses and buggies going by,
everybody sitting high in the open
carriages, the black driver, and in
back the man and the woman,
usually young and always white.
and I was always white.
and hardly charmed by the world.
New Orleans was a place to hide.
I could piss away my life,unmolested except for the rats...

Young in New Orleans

Charles Bukowski