With the holidays upon us I decided to go ahead and post my fourth quarter Favorites . I’m currently reading some books I plan to review here plus I have a post or two percolating so I don’t think I’ll … Continue reading Favorite Reads, Last Quarter-ish
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
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
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. ***** Survivors August It’s August in New Orleans and autumn seems as far away as Australia. Forget the dogs, these are the cat days of summer at my house. The yard cats lie around making barely a bump in the languid landscape. They watch as I perform my gardening snips and sweeps with eyes both exhausted and persnickity … Continue reading Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 5
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
I needed to call you but I’d forgotten your number, the one I always thought was burned into my memory — for hours I anxiously thumbed through white and yellow pages, forgetting then remembering your name. Between the pages I could see your dining room, the floor tile cracked like a spider’s web, the old fridge where all your kids stood before the open door to feel the frigid air on desperately hot days while upstairs pretty ladies on a calendar lounged without a drop of sweat to mar their fleshy perfection. Continue reading 803 Monroe
Charlotte Hamrick 