Today is the seventeenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the one year anniversary of Hurricane Ida, two storms that left a lot of death and devastation in New Orleans and the extended area. Recently, I had a Creative Nonfiction piece … Continue reading A Significant Date
Today is the 14 th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The storm made landfall approximately 40 miles southeast of New Orleans and is responsible for heavy wind damage and the levee breach that drowned much of the city. The subsequent infrastructure … Continue reading CNF in Tiny Essays
Today is the twelfth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation left in New Orleans as a result of the failure of our levee system. I can’t think of a better way to honor those that died than to give to those in Texas who are going through a similar experience with Hurricane Harvey. First Draft was a tireless cheerleader for New Orleans recovery in the months after Katrina. Peter Athas, one of the FD bloggers, was doing his own thing on his personal blog during that time. I can vouch for these people. Your donation will get to the … Continue reading Save Who You Can
Photo via NASA Earth Observatory In remembrance of lives lost and lives forever changed due to the Federal levee breach in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I’ll be posting poems and short essays I’ve written over the past 10 years through August 29. Never Forget. ***** August 2005 Bloated river, threatening levee. A fifth of gin for a genie appearance. The bottle answered, floating, rolling out like a funeral. That’s the best you can hope for. The sky broke down, finally. Wailed hard and sweltering. 2015 Continue reading Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 7
In rememberance of lives lost and lives forever changed due to the Federal levee breach in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I’ll be posting poems and short essays I’ve written over the past 10 years through August 29. Never Forget. ***** Washed Away Every time I smell that scent it brings back those long summer days – and the winter ones too – when we all sat outside together smoking and talking, laughing at your stories, you were always the funny one quick with a joke and a smile, the glint of devilment in your soft brown eyes, … Continue reading Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 6
Photo by Geovanni Velasquez for NOLAFemmes In rememberance of lives lost and lives forever changed due to the Federal levee breach in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I’ll be posting poems and short essays I’ve written over the past 10 years through August 29. Never forget. Sorrows and Secrets The sky hangs low bloated with water waiting to fall. It hovers like ambiguity. The river parts it’s waves as crow’s wings part the air, accepting sorrows and secrets nestled sweetly in its belly, lifted from the shoulders of the disheartened who spill uncertainty into her accepting oblivion. Gulls glide … Continue reading Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 4
Photo by Infrogmation Broken City 2006 I’ve always liked the fog. The ambiance of mystery…….muted sounds, glimpses of shapes that morph into creatures of the imagination, the feeling of still isolation. But today was the fourth day of driving through a fog that only became denser as I approached the upward slant to the bridge over the Mississippi. Crossing the bridge was surreal, as though driving into the gaping mouth of something not-of-this-earth. I could see absolutely nothing except the tail lights of a few cars directly in front of me, the sides of the bridge going up into a … Continue reading Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 3
Photo by Infrogmation In rememberance of lives lost and lives forever changed due to the Federal levee breach in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I’ll be posting poems and short essays I’ve written over the past 10 years through August 29. Never forget. Birdless We watched for the return of the birds. The air around the house was silent and devoid of flutterings, a vacuum of tweets and whistles. What stragglingh flowers were left went hummingbirdless while twigs and string were just twigs and string with no hope of sheltering featherless offspring. It was strangely quiet, as though … Continue reading Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 2
Photo by Infrogmation In rememberance of lives lost and lives forever changed due to the Federal levee breach in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I’ll be posting poems and short essays I’ve written over the past 10 years through August 29. Never forget. ***** Disparity In that house red beans & rice cooked every Monday for four generations until the water washed it away. It floated down Forgotten Street, clapboards splintering like frail old bones in the jaws of the beast. The land where it stood’s going on five years empty now, sacred ground bleached with the salt … Continue reading Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 1
When the water came crashing through windows it wasn’t lovely or artistic, it was raw and dirty and filled with the last words screamed by lonely old ladies in wheelchairs who were found six days later in the room where they drowned. _____________________________________- I never know when the memories of the storm (Hurricane Katrina) and the flood and the victims will grab my gut. It did just now when I saw this photo and read about the artist who created it “to mimic a frothy flood of water rushing into a room”. And this was my reaction. This was a … Continue reading Perspective
