Challenge:In the Wake of Katrina

[bluerains]

as the government touts...

we didn't forsee this happening...

modern prophets seen the view
as pied pipers herd the sheep....


http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

 

[Liar]

Took me a while...NO is personal, even if I know nobody there anymore.


Identity

Who are you?
What is this mockery
of Venice that I see?
Surrealism and sound-bites
on a screen? Still not
the real deal, still not me,
still just a pixel storm,
fictional flurry on TV.

This is not where I coughed
on the entrailing linger of
my first Havanna under a
purple balcony, not where I kissed
the sun and her neck equally,
leaned against cast iron and
raised rock in Louie Park shade.

This is not where I chased a laughter
through alleys, across a busy Canal,
cornered a giggle in a gateway.

Not she and me
on a blanket, listening to
freestyling in Lafayette,

Not black rum on cane sugar beds,
not turning heads with public display,
not implausible hands
on impeccable skin
in impossible heat.

You share a sihlouette
with a piece of me.
But New Orleans you are not.
How could you be?

 

[quietpoet]

Sentimental in a sad sort of way

I liked this a lot. You made it so intimate. Just wish you would run a spell check or something... kind of takes something away from the magic of the poem!

qp

Took me a while...NO is personal, even if I know nobody there anymore.


Identity

Who are you?
What is this mockery
of Venice that I see?
Surrealism and sound-bites
on a screen? Still not
the real deal, still not me,
still just a pixel storm,
fictional flurry on TV.

This is not where I coughed
on the entrailing linger of
my first Havanna under a
purple balcony, not where I kissed
the sun and her neck equally,
leaned against cast iron and
raised rock in Louie Park shade.

This is not where I chased a laughter
through alleys, across a busy Canal,
cornered a giggle in a gateway.

Not she and me
on a blanket, listening to
freestyling in Lafayette,

Not black rum on cane sugar beds,
not turning heads with public display,
not implausible hands
on impeccable skin
in impossible heat.

You share a sihlouette
with a piece of me.
But New Orleans you are not.
How could you be?

 

[bluerains]

wow liar...

I liked this a lot. You made it so intimate. Just wish you would run a spell check or something... kind of takes something away from the magic of the poem!

qp

awesome ..write...don't mind QP he does the same to me...but, am glad he is there to correct my bad eyes...tis the editor in him...
luvfromtheblue

 

[BooMerengue]

Took me a while...NO is personal, even if I know nobody there anymore.


Identity

Who are you?
What is this mockery
of Venice that I see?
Surrealism and sound-bites
on a screen? Still not
the real deal, still not me,
still just a pixel storm,
fictional flurry on TV.

This is not where I coughed
on the entrailing linger of
my first Havanna under a
purple balcony, not where I kissed
the sun and her neck equally,
leaned against cast iron and
raised rock in Louie Park shade.

This is not where I chased a laughter
through alleys, across a busy Canal,
cornered a giggle in a gateway.

Not she and me
on a blanket, listening to
freestyling in Lafayette,

Not black rum on cane sugar beds,
not turning heads with public display,
not implausible hands
on impeccable skin
in impossible heat.

You share a sihlouette
with a piece of me.
But New Orleans you are not.
How could you be?

Its personal for me, too, babe and this took me back there. I think I saw you running after that pretty girl!

 

[tungtied2u]

the thin flesh of civilization
has been rent, exposing
it's soft underbelly, offal
comes spilling out,
exposing the inner workings
of mankind
held in check until now
by a fragile network
formulated over the ages

how easily it rips,
reduces society to anarchy
the grotesque guts
with their putrid contents
poring out, filling the streets
infecting all who come in touch
with the stench of death

triage is just a temporary measure
containment a fairy tale
now we have seen the lie
we thought we were,
laid bare,
our deepest depravities
and fears, floated
for all to see

normalcy will never be the same,
when we walk the streets,
greet neighbors and smile
we will never be sure
of sincerity or sham
such is the reality
when civilization is reduced
to survival

 

[quietpoet]

Excellent!

I love this. It shows the fear fomented by so many Hollywood movies, expressing exactly the same thing when society breaks down... Anarchy. When you get such a polarized public it can make it even worse. I wonder if society in 20 years will resemble that of 1999, or 2005 New Orleans... I would bet on the latter, unless we wake up.

qp

the thin flesh of civilization
has been rent, exposing
it's soft underbelly, offal
comes spilling out,
exposing the inner workings
of mankind
held in check until now
by a fragile network
formulated over the ages

how easily it rips,
reduces society to anarchy
the grotesque guts
with their putrid contents
poring out, filling the streets
infecting all who come in touch
with the stench of death

triage is just a temporary measure
containment a fairy tale
now we have seen the lie
we thought we were,
laid bare,
our deepest depravities
and fears, floated
for all to see

normalcy will never be the same,
when we walk the streets,
greet neighbors and smile
we will never be sure
of sincerity or sham
such is the reality
when civilization is reduced
to survival

 

[sandspike]

I Cried For My Creole

My father sailed away,
escaping three brothers.
Who used to be four
and loved one another.
My resemblance to father
broke the bonds of motherhood.
She and her brothers,
who loved one another
left with nary a note.

My aunt ran a tavern and traded.
I was worth two casks of rum.
To a coastal captain,
who beat me into a seaman,
Coming of age at eleven.
With the ending of my fifteen year
I left for down under.
Leaving.....
nothing I needed or loved.

Sydney was where the first ships
anchored, home to the pub
where I moored. On a day in
a month I can not remember
in the year of seventeen ninety-two.
I drank with a creole from the crescent city.
Who cried for his home burned in eighty-eight.
He was left homeless and without family.
His refuge a ship leaving for his future.
He introduced feelings shaking my keel.
Leaving me unanchored in a sea of emotion.
His loss of family in a fiery hell,
conjuring compassion I had never known.

I passed more years
on a New England whaler.
Then I found love
just north of New Bedford.
Learning the dry goods trade,
and what love gives to life.
I now look down on that crescent city,
crying for a Creole I haven't seen since.
Praying my descendants will have compassion.
For the glory of God.... pray for New Orleans.

 

[CharleyH]

My fellow poets,
Throughout history, poetry has often been used to catalogue crises of epic proportion, to lend a humanistic viewpoint to the tragic events which often befall us.
I propose such a challenge to you all. Lend your heart, thoughts and words and talents to help record the tragedy wreaked upon our brothers and sisters in the Gulf area.
Any form, any length, either epic or personal. Such tragedies as this deserve, no beg for remembrance in a means that touches all.

The deadline is September 11, no stranger to such cataclysm.
Post your responses on tne new poems thread.

Blessed be.

I seriously, and no offence, but I do not understand why people post only things about tragedy when it happens in the US. Katrina is a crisis because people make it so. It is certainly no more a crisis than the thousands who die everyday in Africa? Or the tousands who just die every day normally. I will not participate.

 

[Rybka]

I seriously, and no offence, but I do not understand why people post only things about tragedy when it happens in the US. Katrina is a crisis because people make it so. It is certainly no more a crisis than the thousands who die everyday in Africa? Or the tousands who just die every day normally. I will not participate.

I seriously respect your right to your perspective and I especially respect your decision.

 

[annaswirls]

so what

I seriously, and no offence, but I do not understand why people post only things about tragedy when it happens in the US. Katrina is a crisis because people make it so. It is certainly no more a crisis than the thousands who die everyday in Africa? Or the tousands who just die every day normally. I will not participate.

Surely I respect yuor opinion etc etc etc, but..


Out of curiousity, I wonder why you feel the need to announce that you are not planning on participating? People are really hurting and need to gather somewhere. This is a big forum, if you don't want to be a part of this one itty bitty thread, why did you even come back?

annaswirls posted last week
???

where did that come from? you are always allowed to write whatever you want to write about, this is a huge forum. you have started many threads that are of little interest to most. if this is not of interest to you, then move to another of the zillion threads like I did when you wrote of the heartache and break up thread ... which was centered around you and your interests as many of the threads you post are. which is not a problem, why is this?

you don't see others writing things like "I will not participate"<---updated from last week's post

"um is it okay if I talk things that have befallen more than just you in the past few weeks" What purpose would that serve-- of course it is your option to start whatever thread you want as it is with anyone.

p.s. People do post poems about individuals that die. people do post poems about other international events. Was it wrong to have a thread about the bombings in London? What about last year's tsunamis? In your opinion, how many people do you consider enough to be dead in order to start a thread? What is your criteria for a crisis?

If you want to start a thread about Africa (not sure which part of the continent you were referring to) go for it girl! I know I could write something up and contribute.

 

[CharleyH]

I seriously respect your right to your perspective and I especially respect your decision.

I respect yours as well.

 

[CharleyH]

p.s. People do post poems about individuals that die. people do post poems about other international events. Was it wrong to have a thread about the bombings in London? What about last year's tsunamis? In your opinion, how many people do you consider enough to be dead in order to start a thread? What is your criteria for a crisis? You know, even Americans are allowed to suffer through a disaster (gasp!) But I can go down to Baltimore schools and let all the kids there that have been relocated here, orhpaned, uprooted, or with a family without anything... I will go tell em that Charley H does not think it is that big of a deal.


If you want to start a thread about Africa (not sure which part of the continent you were referring to) go for it girl! I know I could write something up and contribute.

Are you quoting me? I don't recall saying that. I never posted a victum thread. I posted a poem about an ass who I dated. I never said it was right of me to do so either, even if I said what you quoted. I must have been drunk if I said that BS, though - LOL.

I believe ... well ... I don't want to piss you off either.

 

[annaswirls]

Are you quoting me? I don't recall saying that. I never posted a victum thread. I posted a poem about an ass who I dated. I never said it was right of me to do so either, even if I said what you quoted. I must have been drunk if I said that BS, though - LOL.

I believe ... well ... I don't want to piss you off either.

ah that second quote was my quote of what I posted last week earlier in your first protest ...I will have to fix it. Maybe you missed it or it wasn't very memorable.

um
I think I found it at the bottom of a cracker jax box

I am not pissed off, understanding your position, just not understanding why you feel the need to protest people needing to come together, not as victims, but as humans coping... and why on this specific thread when there are always threads like this.

it can always be worse but everyone has a right to do what they can to cope and to help others. even if it is just getting dumped and being called an ass or being dumped by an ass or being dumped on your ass etc etc etc

 

[Angeline]

What is the shape
of jazz to come?
Words are amorphous miasma
matted, clumped under torn lumber
and sodden tires.

What poem can be built
of words that clog the throat,
what song from notes that sink
or float not like clouds or balloons,
but swollen memories
of anybody's grandma
and forever first graders
bobbing in sewage?
What is the shape
of jazz to come? Why
should it matter?

This is the space between beats.

The second line is speechless
though griots still hold drums
and gourd guitars, waiting
for Pops to emerge
from the depths of Congo Square
and blow his cornet like Gabriel's horn,
call his flock of blues back from the sky
to weep some balm of mourning
on this ebbing horror.

 

[CharleyH]

ah that second quote was my quote of what I posted last week earlier in your first protest ...I will have to fix it. Maybe you missed it or it wasn't very memorable.

um
I think I found it at the bottom of a cracker jax box

I am not pissed off, understanding your position, just not understanding why you feel the need to protest people needing to come together, not as victims, but as humans coping... and why on this specific thread when there are always threads like this.

it can always be worse but everyone has a right to do what they can to cope and to help others. even if it is just getting dumped and being called an ass or being dumped by an ass or being dumped on your ass etc etc etc

I probably missed some words there. I do not personally feel Katrina is an American tragedy, or worthier than any other. Certainly, any poem I would write about it would be regarding something many Americans, right now, do not want to hear. I am empathetic, certainly. I am not sympathetic, though, particularly. I do not want to participate (not protesting it) only because, if I told you it would not be any kind of good deed I try to do. I simply decline to participate in ONE situation that is impossible to avoid. What is tragedy? Every day I pass so many tragic lives. We spit money to big disasters in the same breath that we walk past the helpless on our street corner.

You ask me to choose something in a previous post, and I have been thinking about that, but how can I choose a tragic life to write about when so many surround me? There are those who CAN help themselves. There are those who cannot. I believe those who did not die in the hurricane CAN help themselves, so is it such a great disaster? What is tragedy, exactly? I am interested in reading the poems, just don't feel I need to write when so much occurs everyday.

On another note, I read a beautiful and almost impeccable poem by Boo recently, 'bout 'nawlins, and I hope she shares it with y'all.

 

[Angeline]

I probably missed some words there. I do not personally feel Katrina is an American tragedy, or worthier than any other. Certainly, any poem I would write about it would be regarding something many Americans, right now, do not want to hear. I am empathetic, certainly. I am not sympathetic, though, particularly. I do not want to participate (not protesting it) only because, if I told you it would not be any kind of good deed I try to do. I simply decline to participate in ONE situation that is impossible to avoid. What is tragedy? Every day I pass so many tragic lives. We spit money to big disasters in the same breath that we walk past the helpless on our street corner.

You ask me to choose something in a previous post, and I have been thinking about that, but how can I choose a tragic life to write about when so many surround me? There are those who CAN help themselves. There are those who cannot. I believe those who did not die in the hurricane CAN help themselves, so is it such a great disaster? What is tragedy, exactly? I am interested in reading the poems, just don't feel I need to write when so much occurs everyday.

On another note, I read a beautiful and almost impeccable poem by Boo recently, and I hope she shares it with y'all.

You shouldn't participate if you don't want to, but you should--being an empathetic person--try to understand that for many people who are writing in this thread, the sense of tragedy is personal. I, for example, have a good friend from this forum whom I last heard from two days before the storm struck. He lives in Gulfport, Mississippi, which is basically destroyed now. I have no idea if he is dead or alive. I am sick with worry about him. This is a place to deal with our feeling about all this. Would you argue with someone at a funeral about the legitimacy of their grief? Would you ask someone who just lost most of their family to define tragedy?

I think losing everyone you love, not to mention your home and everything that connects you to it is a real disaster, Charley. And I wouldn't add to people's very personal sense of loss by telling them folks can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Maybe they can, but this isn't the time or the place for reminding.

 

[champagne1982]

If my neighbour was painting his fence,
I would pick up a paintbrush.
If my community was rebuilding an arena, lost to an arson's torch,
I would hammer a few nails.
If my friends were grieving the illness and death of family,
I would cry with them.

You are my neighbours, my community and my friends.

 

[PatCarrington]

Another Act of Waiting


The cold at dusk comes hard as nightsticks.
I can’t wait any longer for a sun
that keeps a higher angle in the sky,
for days when warmth is not
its deepest secret, when I could stand
on any corner as a son,
reach out my fingers
not wrapped in rags and call

my city home. I don’t know
what I would have done
had I not had its hand to hold.
I don’t know what I should be
doing now. Was I sleeping

while the others suffered,

while they stole my voice
and made a stranger of a town
that had rocked me in its arms?

Am I sleeping now?

Even in a dream, I never felt
this distracted nature in people. I
like to think, as they hurry past,
that I am there among them,
touching as we walk in our tight shoes.
Or better, in their thoughts. I
don’t want to believe this farce
is where we have fallen to, where
we can’t sense a churning
in each other’s blood, where
the motors in our chests
never tell us to dance. I
don’t want to believe there are
uncertain moments like this
in their lives as well, when they sigh

and must be content with loneliness,
with a coffee and the imagining of cakes
that pair it on a checkered tablecloth
somewhere. When they glance up
from chicken bones to see
if rope is dangling from a solitary tree.
When we all ask ourselves at once,

Shall I go? And answer
yes and then not move

toward a place where there’s no need
to think about vagaries
like weather or the blindness
of crowds. Or lost children.

 

[CharleyH]

This is a place to deal with our feeling about all this. Would you argue with someone at a funeral about the legitimacy of their grief? Would you ask someone who just lost most of their family to define tragedy?

I think losing everyone you love, not to mention your home and everything that connects you to it is a real disaster, Charley. And I wouldn't add to people's very personal sense of loss by telling them folks can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Maybe they can, but this isn't the time or the place for reminding.

I am not sure that a porn site is a place to deal with grief on threads, Angeline ... but I do understand.

The legitimacy of grief is asked almost constantly at funerals, so I am not sure what you mean by this? I could discuss losing everything, but I know you have lost much that hurts, so respectfully, I will not discuss the loss of everything.

I am empathtic to the poor. THE POOR who did not get out, and were left behind. I believe I have said that numerous times, just not on the poetry board, I guess. I am not adding to people's loss by refusing to take a stand in what I believe, and I could say much more but do not. I am articulating my opinion ... on an open SEX forum, a forum, need I remind you that is about writing and reading sex?

I respectfully read. I respectfully refuse to write about Katrina. If I respect your decision and reason to write, should you not respect my desicion and reason not to write?

Why am I catching flack for being honest?

 

[Angeline]

I am not sure that a porn site is a place to deal with grief on threads, Angeline ... but I do understand.

The legitimacy of grief is asked almost constantly at funerals, so I am not sure what you mean by this? I could discuss losing everything, but I know you have lost much that hurts, so respectfully, I will not discuss the loss of everything.

I am empathtic to the poor. THE POOR who did not get out, and were left behind. I believe I have said that numerous times, just not on the poetry board, I guess. I am not adding to people's loss by refusing to take a stand in what I believe, and I could say much more but do not. I am articulating my opinion ... on an open SEX forum, a forum, need I remind you that is about writing and reading sex?

I respectfully read. I respectfully refuse to write about Katrina. If I respect your decision and reason to write, should you not respect my desicion and reason not to write?

Why am I catching flack for being honest?

You're not. I'm just trying to explain. And my personal experiences with grief have taught me that you experience it anywhere and everywhere it strikes. I can't censor what I feel for a more appropriate place. Just trying to explain that....

Don't take it personally, my friend.

 

[CharleyH]

You're not. I'm just trying to explain. And my personal experiences with grief have taught me that you experience it anywhere and everywhere it strikes. I can't censor what I feel for a more appropriate place. Just trying to explain that....


Don't take it personally, my friend.

Should not every day ... not just simply in these 'special circumstances' be moments of empathy? Sympathy, even? At least for those who desire that word? (edit to add - grief is selfish in my opinion).

I appreciate your personal experiences, though I won't say mine unless you ask. Grief is the easy part of life. Other things you face very much alone. If people live? They are not alone, ever ....

I appreciate all opinions, love. I doubt I have made any feel I have not, even Art. :|
Here is a strong one of mine. I am sorry it offends people. It is an interesting discussion, but the original thread is about a challenge that I declined to be involved in, and that many do want to be involved in, and I look forward to reading all. Again, I can't talk enough about Boo's poem

 

[tungtied2u]

Tragedy
be it overwhelming waves
or the soft trickle of tears
is constant
a neverending stream
of everyday life

how many are caught up
in the torrents
of life's cruel currents
is irrelevant

one single hand
breaking the surface
grasping for salvation
no less for it's solitariness
than a thousand

but when they are swept by
in such large number
two hands seem
so inadequate
you can only clench your fists
in frustration

shake them at the gods
curse their vain show of disdain
for those precious lives
fall on your knees
and weep

 

[CharleyH]

Tragedy
be it overwhelming waves
or the soft trickle of tears
is constant
a neverending stream
of everyday life

how many are caught up
in the torrents
of life's cruel currents
is irrelevant

one single hand
breaking the surface
grasping for salvation
no less for it's solitariness
than a thousand

but when they are swept by
in such large number
two hands seem
so inadequate
you can only clench your fists
in frustration

shake them at the gods
curse their vain show of disdain
for those precious lives
fall on your knees
and weep

Thanks TT2U. I meant to say sadness is easy, and happiness is hard.

(more a bump than anything )

Good poem but it needs more ... feeling or umph.

 

[BooMerengue]

What is the shape
of jazz to come?
Words are amorphous miasma
matted, clumped under torn lumber
and sodden tires.

What poem can be built
of words that clog the throat,
what song from notes that sink
or float not like clouds or balloons,
but swollen memories
of anybody's grandma
and forever first graders
bobbing in sewage?
What is the shape
of jazz to come? Why
should it matter?

This is the space between beats.

The second line is speechless
though griots still hold drums
and gourd guitars, waiting
for Pops to emerge
from the depths of Congo Square
and blow his cornet like Gabriel's horn,
call his flock of blues back from the sky
to weep some balm of mourning
on this ebbing horror.

"What is the shape
of jazz to come?"

Its already shaping
getting ready to burst
out over us in a new wave
strutting and catwalking
back into our hearts
and our souls;
you'll see
and you'll hear.
Energy doesn't die
it rebirths itself
into newer and better shapes.
You'll see
and you'll hear
and you'll feel raucous joy
in your blood and bones
once again.
You'll see!

BTW Ange, as of today "Mr Eddie" Gabriel, age 94 has not been found.

Who he is

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