Hurricanes of humanity, a poem

Hurricane Katrina, NOAA Satellite image

Hurricanes of humanity
By Mike Marcellino

Hurricanes of humanity -
Weathermen called the wind
Katrina,
her blow overwheling
waves
covered New Orleans,
leaving in her wake
a city never the same.

She left them cajuns
reeling,
mumbling 'bout
their old homes
dying for MEMA
cottages
out of reach
south of highway 90
sold ‘em
to contractors
building
casinos for the poor
working
families without homes.
Hurricanes of humanity -
Brass
of Army sergeants
homeless in uniform
swept from the streets,
no need for assessment.
Giv’em an offer they can’t afford -
habitat for five hundred dollars
a month
plus flood insurance
Churches turned some gold to straw,
Parish people say,
wonderin ‘bout their government
before, during an after
nation’s greatest disaster,
when a category 5
hit the Gulf Coast
on that August day.
2005.

Hurricanes of humanity -
Homes not jails
food not bombs
500 city kitchens
cross country and
twenty two to thirty two
percent of our kids -
going to school,
homeless
Arizona to Detroit
Hurricanes of humanity -
subjects of FEMA
from New Orleans
to Brooklyn,
armies on the street
to college.
What went wrong?
they ask.
Not the people?
they say.
Must of been the leaders,
some say.
Hurricanes of humanity -
Bayou grits,
southern accents
let’s see
before, during and after
Katrina.
Try disability,
Hope a leg’s missing,
never mind.
Speakers
in the woods,
tents of seven hundred,
survivers
of the bitter winter
2009.
Hurricanes of humanity -
Like Dorothy
upside down.
Hope for a soft landing,
bed of change,
deportees
from a 20 megaton daydream,
two gallons left
lost out by fifty fifty -
miles
dollars
away
from New Orleans
and Black Bay.
Copyright Hurricanes of humanity by Mike Marcellino 2009.