Ghosts of New Orleans

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After it was too late
after the levees had burst
after the busses were flooded
and useless and the drivers had fled,
after men women and children
died in the streets and in their attics,
after the tardy helicopters
the frantic signs shouting,
HelP US!
and the small ragged fleet trying to rescue
those escaping through frantic holes,
after bodies snagged in the trees,
or were left along the side of the road,
after Anderson Cooper cried
and the lies about looting
(most were taking food and supplies)
after the cops with machine guns
stopped survivors from entering
white suburban communities
still above water,
after the people who didn't have cars
and couldn't afford to get out of town
were abandoned at the Superdome
and the Convention Center,
sans food, sanitation or security
and the Natl guard looked on
and Barbara Bush thought the relocation
to Houston's Astrodome,
was working well for the poor
because they were underprivileged anyway,
after the elderly were deserted
and left to die in nursing homes
and prisoners were left behind
in cells filling with water,
Chertoff flew to Atlanta
and Bush had his picture taken
with a country singer,
and Cheney went hunting.

After Brownie emailed
"Can I come home now?"
and his assistant said the boss needed time
to eat a good dinner at a restaurant
and everyone was left to fend for themselves.

Even after the president
stood in the square in front of the church
under the lights
and swore to rebuild,
Konye West said,
George Bush doesn't care about black people.

Six months later
there are
1300 hundred dead,
the toll still climbing,
230 children still missing,
trailers stuck in the mud
and like the busses, unusable,
an area the size of Manhattan destroyed,
houses where families lived for generations,
are filled with arsenic and toxic mold
and the Katrina survivors
(over 65000 displaced persons)
are kicked out of hotel rooms,
having no lobbyists with bags of money,
no rich patrons,
and no corporate investors.
So the ghosts of New Orleans,
many homeless now,
wander strange cities
sleep in parks and on lawns,
while the old Dixieland sound
wails for tourists now
and the Saints go Marching
somewhere else.