150. Two Sisters

by Jill Eisnaugle -

[In honor of the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.]

Two sisters stood upon the shore
Their lives still and carefree
Each held sheer blessings to adore
Beside the placid sea

They lived a normal coastal life
And shared their joys at length
Until a wretched wrath of strife
Arrived to test their strength

One August morn, a violent gale
Appeared upon the sand
With utter force, no one could scale
The magnitude at hand

When night befell, it looked as though
The sisters weathered fine
But come the dawn, fate would bestow
A firm and swift decline

Both sisters had been bruised and crushed
As wind and turmoil raged
But soon, one sibling’s life was hushed
When floodwaters upstaged

Submerging her amid the flow
Of tragedy and grief
Left by a certain coastal foe
That offered no relief

The sisters, once still and carefree
Persist upon the shore
As pillars for the world to see
Much stronger than before

New Orleans and Biloxi: kin
Whose lives serve to sustain
Although Katrina marred their skin
In one, late August rain

157. When A Storm Comes This Way

by Dione Porsche - New Orleans

When a storm comes this way
Struggle madly to get away

Come back to nothing
It is all lost
So here I sit

Sitting mindless, it went free
My body is doomed to stay with me

I cannot look back at what I have lost
Things can be replaced
But a broken heart
My heart has since been locked away

In pieces crumpled by the vandals
Whose friendships from the start
Were a gamble

No effort do I put forth
I can't just yet
I know the game
Valentines Day is not the same
Like every other holiday

Alone body, mind and soul
No where to go

No where to roam
Just looking around
This is not home

How do you recover when you know of a better life?
How do you live in dysfunction and strife?

I didnt choose to live this way
But suddenly it happened
When a storm came this way

147. Soul Feud

by Dr. Charles Frederickson - Bangkok, Thailand

Never getcha self inta pissin’
Contest with stank hightailin’ skunk

Where sushi is called bait
Earthworms danglin’ from rusty hooks
Wrigglin’ night crawlers glowworm possums
Actin’ crazier than sprayed cockroaches

Just ‘cause chickens got wings
Don’t mean them’all ken fly

Uprooted human beans collard greens
Hog maw chitterlings black-eyed peas
Hominy grits soaked in lye
Crumbly runt hush puppy litter

Puttin’ yer boots in de
Oven still taint changin’ nuthin’

Bristly catfish whiskers unshaven stubble
Stranded crawfish fetid potluck jambalaya
Force-fed toxic mumbo jumbo gumbo
Bubblin’ brown sugar pee-can pralines

Don’t piss on my leg
And tell me it’s rainin’

148. Turds In Hell

by Dr. Charles Frederickson - Bangkok, Thailand

Once upon Old Orleans upbeat
Beast of times underbelly exposed
Dispossessed kinfolk clinging driftwood shadows
Unfathomable depths bewailing plaintive moans

Below see level vampire netherworld
Vanquished past riptide demons surface
Metamorphic destiny born again transmigration
Grim reaper channeling hoodoo-voodoo curses

Haunted houses flooded with reflections
Pretentious claptrap spirits locked inside
Macabre ghoulish shadows attic cornered
Decomposed living dead tatty cobwebs

Loose echoes ricocheting off walls
Zip suit tarot fortunes discarded
Buoyancy coupling shamelessly with danger
Caged blue canaries spooky shut-ins

Embalmed ghosts haunting forsaken psyches
Thumping gizzards throbbing grizzly skin
In limbo “Bokor” castoff spells
Black magic dolls needling consolation

146. Fishbowl

by Joanna Parsons - San Jose/Ontario

Eric published an article
a prophecy of sorts, with the vision of a fishbowl place
In peril and sinking. Thousands to be lost,
pumps to be overwhelmed and
land to be quelched by overtopping waves.

Preacher preached a message. About heeding the warnings
God gives us
You can't put a city
next to the sea
below sea level.
and not think something will be

Zarina saw the sights
Kids at the aunts, a trip to the south where black men were plentiful
and houses were built on stilts

Family man told the tale
how he and his children got out
past floods and sludge and anything uncanny
"I aint going back, this place a fishbowl"
(and government got a fishbowl mentality)

Jimmy played the bass
The place of Jazz's birth
Hot humid nights under the club-smoke filled scene
as he thumbed the beat
years before it all went down

John Doe water engineer sat thinking
with a gun to his temple
"why you want to try to take your life
Mr. agency guy?"
(Cause I got the blood of 1100 on my hands).
And i had fishbowl mentality

Georgie said a prayer
as a chief in command should
a good heart with bad choices
to fight a war, or build the coast?
unwittingly in a fishbowl of red tape

`The Joneses family bought house
after hassles with government and a foreign place
they called home
No more ice cream trucks
on Humanity
and the wonder of coming back soon

I wrote a story
of a place I'd never seen
of streets I'd never walked and an aura
I never breathed
of a city I've never lived
but hope to see
rebuild, reborn
clean
without
the fishbowl mentality

145. Crescent City Blues In K

by Nordette Adams - New Jersey

You love our blues, our souls hung
our spirituals sung and carried on breezes
yet deny the truths that bring us to our knees
our sorrows burrowed in battered hearts
wounds deep reopened and salted

Cry for Katrina's dead, mourn
our departed minstrels gone long before them
that smiled and crooned, kept secret
the politics of blue gloom notes
like Satchmo spreading wide his lips with
appeasing pearl whites gritted.

You love the blues, the jazz, the cool and hot
but know not the people nor their lot
nor demons wrestled, angels kissed
death wails howled nightly 'neath shit
birthing music, the beauty, grace welded exquisite
creative genius hunkered to ankles, hips
hearts weighted in painful joy of drunken stupor
cultivating survival, incubating dreams
splitting tongues bursting the spiritblood
you love, you mourn, for which you do mock funerals
but why since what you love's not died?

You see the art but not the artists
nor care to know the hearts that birthed the art of New Orleans
nor her children who sing the blues crude
beautifully on the news. But you'll love that blues too
once the City's paupers have hammered it and
glamoured it between tinkled ivory, the gleam of grinning trumpets
and the depths of distant fingers upon a bass.

144. To The Victims Of Katrina

by TeeTee

The day has come to cry we said the end has come a city dead. In
there homes and in the streets. People stealing food to eat. They pray
will they come please come and help us and our loved ones. The
government makes promises but still they wait. For some the help came to late,
but this place is strong with pride they will rebuild they will
survive.

143. Here To Stay

by Theresa Morales - Mississippi Gulf Coast

Katrina we will never forget the day you came
You left behind so much pain
Our life will never be the same

We heard your roar as you came ashore
You came out of the sea and onto the land like an angry hand

You destroyed so much
You made sure we ALL felt your touch

The World heard our cries
People came from far and near
They saw our tears and they felt our fears

First came the water and ice
That was really nice
Then came the MRE's
We now had our basic needs
Finally at last
And in time there was no line
We were able to get gas

Days became weeks
Weeks became months
And now its been a year since you were here

We made it through recovery
Rebuilding has began
The futrue is still to come
Well this is what we have to say
We are here to stay
Even though you took so much away
Our hearts may be broke
But we are stronger then the mighty oak
We have God
We have Hope

142. Nine Months After

by Dione Porche - New Orleans, Louisiana

No culture, no sound, no one is around
Everything is lost, pictures along with trash
Trophies, Mardi Gras beads, sentimental valuables
Lost in a flash
Yesterday, not long ago
Our lives were as yours
We had our problems
We had our joys
People lived in houses
The coffee was brewing
The laundry was in the wash
Uptown, downtown, Lakeshore Drive
No one knew
That we'd just be happy to be alive
Here back home is an alien land
No one could believe
All of us were affected
Beyond what we could ever perceive
We knew that it would happen
Forty years to count
Countdown to a nightmare
A dream come true, per se
Powerless
Defenseless
Katrina had her way

Hellicane category: SURVIVORS' Tales

141. Katrina, Katrina

by Dione Porche - New Orleans, Louisiana

Katrina, Katrina,
What have you done to me?
I know I am not alone
But I’m taking it personally
You tortured my animals
And made them starve
I couldn’t get back fast enough
Now they’re lost
My family is dispersed
I now live alone
Depressed and lonely
A barren trailer is now my home
Everything I loved and nurtured
Was taken away from me
My home, my grocery store
My comfort zone
My family
I now seldom see
Daily reminders are everywhere
My dreams, my hopes are riddled
With despair
True, my life was teetering down
Before your wrath destroyed my world
When my spirit was fragile and weak
Your winds toppled it to the ground
Overwhelmed, I crumbled away
leaving me broken and sad
Still I struggled to stay afloat
With whatever hope I had
I fell so hard that my heart shattered
Depressed and angry, nothing mattered
No longer do I live in my familiar surroundings
My meager treasured belongings
Muddied and ruined
But despite your reign of destruction
I vow to defeat you
With my faith and conviction
I assure you my family will beat you
Hard work and love will uphold
As I work hard and help thy neighbors
My friends and family
Will surely come home

Hellicane category: SURVIVORS' Tales

140. Daughter Of Your Thoughts

by Roland R. Ruiz - San Antonio, Texas

Dedicated To: Chrisy Marie Ruiz

Dear Lord up so high, I question as to why, death is in the air
When a child of your creation, pays a visit every year
Mother Nature is her name, has a will all her own
You pay no favorites Lord, for you give it to one and all
Soon the season will adorn, our beautiful Gulf Coast shore
Along the southern borders, in the good old USA
I recall, oh so well, the memories are still so fresh
Of the loss of life and home, we suffered just last year
The daughter of your thoughts, bore some children, recently
In a season, we'll remember, for all eternity
Evil in their sinister ways, much like the ones, who ran away
Katrina and Rita are the names, which will live forever
In the minds of those infected, by the storms of last September
Dear Lord, to you, so high above, I say a silent prayer
If you would ask your Daughter, to keep her anger down
Let's not repeat the season, that we suffered just months ago
And give us time to heal the pain, that remains with us today

139. Where I Drift

by DivaDeb

Haunting Waters
Imprison me
Capture me in Death
Eternally
Speak for me now
For my chance has gone
My body to illustrate
As I float along
Forced into Darkness
Rememberance of mental pain
The unknown turned into acceptance
With the downpour
of Demonic Rain
My fleeing not as swift
As Katrina's fierce arrival
She swallowed me completely
Left me with questioned survival
Battle fought and lost
Casualties left to swell
Floating in her Aftermath
Stolen to her hell
A voice in light calls
Seperated by the darkness, deep
Joins a chorus of chanting seekers
Object of hopes now in watery sleep

138. A Human's Anger (Political Victim)

by Tabitha aka Poetic SunShyne - New Orleans, now in S.A.

If it will make you feel better to hear me say that I am fine
Then I'm fine...
but deep down my heart is broken and on certain
days I feel as if I'm losing my mind
We were trapped in a hotel for 4 days
I thought of our deaths a million different ways
You tend to sway in and out of reality when your back
is to the wall
NO water...NO air...And it seemed like NO way out
So your soul decides to free fall
A small light shines and you get to escape
Finding solice in a foreign town
You turn on the television to see those who didn't make it out
and guilt sets in
Some of these people were my kin!
And there was nothing I could do to set them free
You go to playing mind games of...It should not be them, but instead be
me
Well today we are all FREE, and they ask me if I'm ever going back
I have to catch myself, because a part of me wants to attack any and all
who asks me that
THEY WERE LEAVING PEOPLE THERE TO DIE!!!!
And that shyt right there is a concrete fact
Why should I return to a government who gives less that a fuck about me
and my kin?
The color of my people's skin was not of their liking
So that gave them the green light to let lives come to an end
They refer to us as refugees
They may as well have called us slaves
I'm not an advocate of murder, but these political bitches need to be 6
feet under ground
Yep I'm saying it...They need to be dead in their graves
I'm angry...I'm sad
We're alive, but we lost ALL we ever had
Don't get it twisted, we are happy to be alive, but
this shyt here deeply makes us mad
And if I had one wish I'd wish for those who perished to rise
Katrina did her damage, but by political officials WE put in office
is how we became victimized
My name is Sunshyne and I survived Katrina
but was almost killed by my government

Peace


Hellicane category: 4-POLITICAL

136. SLAM!

by Saran - New Orleans, Louisiana

I think something changed.
The power’s out.
The water’s gone.
My feet are wet.
And I’m in a boarding school
543 miles away from
Everything.

Hellicane category: SURVIVORS' Tales