Sad Callings From N'awlins.-(written nine days after Katrina hit.)

How many lips begged

salvation over cell phones,
as flood tides engulfed them

With Katrina's kiss of death?

How many hundreds of mouths

stretched with pursed lips,
above the filthy waters,

sucking life from bubbles of air
in attics, and crawlspaces

all across New Orleans?

How many souls were trapped,

strapped, bedridden, or wheelchair bound,

as the liquid death crept up over their chins,
eyes wide with terror,

and new found hopelessness?

How many toddlers climbed

in terror up their mothers bodies
like trees to escape the flood,

as babies were held high
until the last possible seconds.

Can you still see them all now,

in the corners of your minds,
where darkest thoughts are

pushed aside, to preserve sanity?

Many lingered from Monday till Friday,

calling on phones or in loud voices

for help till gurgles silenced their pleas.  

Many more unfortunate folks on rooftops,

listened to neighbors begging for rescue,

though unable to swim, to free them from attic prisons.

Sons listened to their mothers

calling them daily to ask if help
would come, and then reassured them

it would, but then Mom's drowned days later.

Where were all of the infrared scanners,
and the heat sensors and goggles,
as well as the many listening devices that can pick up
even the tiniest voices through walls and rooftops?

Where were all the seaplanes

and massive transport vessels,
and troop carriers in the form of

copters, and trucks, and swamp buggies?

Where were any, and all available boats
including the Navy and Coast Guard ships,
all launching, dinghies and rescue craft?

All those Lifeboats filled with

dedicated sailors bringing axes,
and chain saws to the locations not flooded yet,
where people were trapped, and then joyously discovered
by our vast technologies listed above.

Why was our president and Vice
president both forced to leave vacations,

well after the catastrophe had struck?

Why weren't Governors, and Mayors screaming insanely
for federal help and evacuation before Monday?

Why would any organization have to

wait for permission to save people?

Why did Fema's Mike Brown,

now relieved from his post, but not fired,
tell the scrambling rescue crews

to take two days to get there?

Where was the safety promised us

 in the 2004 election, under the bent,

and now badly broken umbrella of Homeland Security?

So many of these questions fall on waterlogged ears,
deafened by false promises and drowned dreams.

The evidence of all of this chaos lies scattered in
the form of many, many bodies still rotting in the streets
and houses, nine days old, and not yet recovered.

Where was the manpower to

retrieve these bodies before they
became unidentifiable to both

their loved ones and the coroners?

Are we truly that short on help in this country?

Do we have to fight over who is in charge

before things are done to save lives?

I am sure many of the Americans

who were tagged as refuges
would be happy to be PAID to rebuild

their homes and businesses,
using local, state, and federal aid.

Let the thousands who have

no jobs find one in the reclaiming of New Orleans.

Mix much of that massive debris

that inundates the city
with concrete, and steel girders

and build insurmountable levees,
that will withstand Class five or higher storms,
and also survive, incompetent government allocations,
of badly needed repair funds.

Ask the bravest, and the strongest

stomached souls among the displaced

to return and be paid a good wage,

to help recover the dead.

Dead who for too long now

have lain in despairing, and
disrespectful arrays all over

the southern part of one
of our great states.

Start pointing fingers at those

who failed to get this right
and REMOVE THEM...DISPLACE them.

Let them find new work
doing the common labor

that needed to be started nine days ago.

Silence the Barbara Bushes

who think these poor folks
are so much better off now,

with no homes, no jobs,

and loved ones perhaps lost forever.

Our Commander-in-Grief and

his entire administration
failed miserably beyond belief.

They need no assuaging by mothers,

or loyal to the end, party members.

Let them take an offensive

to answer these questions,
and then do what needs

 to be done nine days late
as of today and NO dollars short!!

But hey, what do I know?
I am just a local artist

outraged by this tragedy,
manifested ten times

more then needed.

I've never worked with show horses,

before my appointment to handle disasters,

and I would never have been be caught
dead relaxing, jogging and riding bikes,

or lounging in Wyoming while people I was sworn,

and elected to protect were drowning in New Orleans.

Pray for the thousands who s

urvived that they will find peace,
and a much better life in the years to come,
than the lives they almost lost

under W.'s and Mike Browns
most tardy Watch!

 

 

©-MFB III