Katrina

Where's the New Deal for our People, our Katrina victims? Where's our FDR?

Slowly from all over the Country survivors of Katrina are being killed or jailed. . . Displaced in another city and no one sees their cause. And if FDR was sitting in the White House we would be united and rallying at our neighbor’s door, but now we sit back and wait for someone to deem their plight important.

Why can't we get off our couches? What's holding us back from helping our neighbors from the South . . . We're afraid . . . We don't want our money and labor to be used for something else . . . No one wants to be slaves to a consortium of big business that will eventually steal all the land, but if we don't hurry the South will be owned by a few.

The South needs an honest man to be in control of the reconstruction. He needs to be one above reproach, the likes of an FDR. Maybe Giuliani, maybe Clinton, but above all he must be one that emits compassion and yet can determine right from wrong. And his word has to be final. No law suits over the work, just do it or leave. The South needs someone to create a plan, a New Deal for the people for in end we're all members of the people.

We must realize this could be Florida, New York, Chicago, St Lois, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, any where we live USA. And still we sit and watch. We must do more. Get mad, write, donate, help, it’s in your hands. Let them know what needs to be done.

And above all . . . Don't let them Forget!

Katrina

Before the winds
before the waves . . . exploded
against white Gulf shores
came the whispered command
. . . evacuate

SUV’s packed highway 10
forgotten stragglers huddled in
the dome . . . indigents locked
themselves all alone waiting
for the shapeless darkness

A monster grew out in the Gulf
Katrina . . . struck with her
fiercest fury and gusts whipped
the south as Yankee Warriors
long ago

In her midst
calmness feigned
a soulful sigh . . . the message
from a battered city
‘We have survived’

And when the weighted water broke
raging rivers ran brown
boroughs bulged . . . roofs roused
. . . merely boulders
in swirling currents

Trapping dwellers
raising homes . . . caged as
hamsters amidst water’s death
shroud and the people of a nation
were held unaware

For man’s failure had had
a hand as always . . . we ignored
nature’s warnings and no man
would be held
accountable

In an instant
of epic proportion
people lay rotting
along the roads
and no one came

With mornings light
residents and hoodlums alike
looted stores
mostly for food

And yet
it won’t be told
the actions of a few
seared the world’s hearts
and no one came

On the third day
a helpless mayor cried
his people lay dying
in the depths

Of the brown swirling liquid
and the coliseum was without food
or water . . . and in their sleep
crept crimes of the night
and no one came

Hopelessness
abandonment frustration
. . . this time it was our people
begging for help and the innocent

Lay floating
face down in the
brownness of the liquid
waste . . . trash
lay everywhere

No one knew what to do
not until an iron willed man
dressed in fatigues
jumped from his Humvee

Atop his head a purple beret perched
and he stood with a stature
embolden as Patton
. . . civility had returned
to New Orleans

And his commands
echoed against slapping boots
and everyone knew then
. . . we had not forgotten.

by Dan Hanosh