Sunday, September 2, 2007

now the for the second anniversary




Note: Believe this poem was published on the ULA's Literary Adventures some time after the catastrophe referred to in '04, but we all know that that particular blog and it's work by members and guest poets and writers there in was hostilely seized by bad apples if not traitorous moles embedded in the Alliance. Who like cowardly bullies refused access or to release the aforementioned work after reasonable requests from the ULA. Anywho this poem is again posted lest we forget what happened and is still not happening in the big easy!


Grief by artist, Amy Roberts, @1988


HURRICANE LAMP



“It was not a normal hurricane...”


-- Bush, in his address to the nation from New Orleans,


Thursday, 9.15.05


Was she a giant spider escaped


from the rings of Saturn,


or a mutated crayfish crashing the barricades .


piled in the brink like mashed potatoes


and gravy, or was She a lightning bolt spooked


out of the black and blue lagoon, or a passing


fad taking the market by storm,


or was she just visiting the wet-land bayou


that army corps of engineered no more


and like a mother of four


living hand to mouth got pissed?






If not the heart the liver and spleen


have been tore out of the country


soul first left to rot in the delta


by the tens of thousands poor


and the hurricane lamps


and the hurricane oil lighter than water


unless one counts the toxins,


fry-later grease and the Malathion


run off to kill the insects in the fields


of share-crops where the Mississippi


rolls over bucks for the combines,


cotton wicks drowned in the boxes and those


in the confines of bloated wharves


gone to deep six in the gulf


between the haves’ and the have nots’ husk.


The baby jazz smothered in their cribs


and the blues men blown over into the dark



drink like rum and coke nothing’s changed


and as usually no bureaucrats charged


not one croc in the public works to be


held accountable again and little you


and little me dismissed by fat cats


and Hollywood TV without a peep


unsung solidarity for them in New Orleans


and the muddy proscenium of the deepest South.


One of the sacred cities of the continental cut


with St. Augustine and San Antonio exposed


on either side where the soul of America


quickens from a skip to a back slide.



Where will Nature strike the nine pins next?


What does it all mean, should we pray to God


on our knees when the ministers and priest


have lost before the open and shut eyes


of the dispossessed, the working mother of four


who survives pay check to pay check and huddles


with the rest of them people in the bottom lands


filled up like a bowl without no cereal or soup tho’


but what else is different, nothing has changed.


Unless you can catch a glimpse in the poisoned


sheen waiving like the flag but black and overturned


the slave ships ghostly prowed toward the blocks


block after block slave auctions without terminus


or old Ponce De Leon privateer and skinner


of muskrats whose ghost would be less fearful


than most being a Frenchman stoked the high ground


for a Quarter frequented by intoxicated tourists


Northern for cous- cous and gumbo and a voodoo


tease in the yellow fever of the souvenir news.


Speaking of the turn of the screw what agency


will comfort if not the poor minority and Cajun


parishes perished under the surge in the cycle


gone made hotter than hell and globally warmed


to a irreversible burn but the creatures of the mojo


midnight witching hour in the silvered glass,


the aristocratic vampyre, pathetic zombie hordes,



and even a loupe-garue or two, when its obvious


from the tube there’s not even a place for the living dead


to lay their heads but then again perhaps all these


things have got themselves an office in Washington D.C.


Nothing ‘round these parts, nothing ever changes much.


So on the third day I caught the Louisiana Governor say


cease and desist the search and rescue in effect


get your shot guns loaded


and the billy clubs spit shined


‘cos there’s poor people roving behind the picture-


windows, Walmart, K-mart, Quickie-mart


must be defended at all costs, money floats the whole damn


network, as visions of ownership danced


in their profits’ heads, the disparate are


racing off with diapers, colored televisions, and bread


and bargain basement semi-automatics to kill the living dead.




Eighteen holes cut short for the vacationing Feds.


The mass media spun and monopolized


same old same old to keep us hypnotized


looter and helicopter rerun nine to five


obscuring the truth that the poor are sodomized


day after day under the boots of a corrupt


and underworldly government bottom to top.


What are systems, lies, dirty deals


in face of the homeless panning for a meal


when the wrath makes all the church bells squeal,


Old deities send plagues and catastrophe


against the common people when tyrants reign


so that them folk will rise up against those


in power who rile and ruin the humane


Earth and sign the times with monster births.


Nothing ever changes but there’s chance


a third or fourth party might emerge at last.


Let those who dodge just desserts swill like hogs,


our Creator has proved more powerful than their God.


9.8.05

2 comments:

King Wenclas said...

Great stuff-- from the best poet in America.
p.s. E-mail me a snail address when you can. Want to mail you some info. Thanks.
-Invisible, Incognito, and Underground.

FDW said...

Who needs motive and agenda when simple, down-home primate compassion does all the work. Thanks. You look at some of our posing friends and you can see the basic flaw-- "the poet stands in the way of the poem"-- like putting the cart before the horse. Whereas say yrself don't run into that problem-- I think it boils down to being "well read" and a basic reveling in nuts and bolts word play. Understanding the nature of "entertainment" that it is an important way if not the most important way of engaging the reader/audience and it is after all a level of "compassion" for THEM, see. Rooted in self knowing to large degree. Our friends especially poster- child MG,not because I don't like him, but because he illustrates well what I sez here, doesn't understand besides: If WCWilliam claims "No ideas but in things", then it follows, "Ideas are things TOO." One must get language!
Will do per yr. request.
Andrew over in Ire will do an audio publishing of this piece over on Deaddrunkdublin.com-- I'll also send Pat S. a file of it too.