August 29, 2006
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Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
Wednesday, August 31, 2005 3:15 p.m. pdt
When the levee breaks in my heart,
And my tears flood with emotion,
I am stricken with sadness
a volley of voluminous despair
I stand, with many, awestruck by nature
And anger at man’s folly and naivete
It’s hard in the Easy
As the levees crack
along with the minds of the populace
Left behind
as the waters rise,
And the dead float from their graves
both metaphorically and literally
down the rivers which used to be the
streets of the iconical City of New Orleans
In Mississippi the dead cry with no voice
rotting in the sun
In Alabama the waters damage as well
and fickle chance becomes maudlin misery
Homelessness on a stateswide scale
no home to which
many and many will ever return
“The suicide rate will climb in Louisiana”
heard as an offhand comment in a
doctor’s office waiting room
One pauses to reflect
on the process of loss
and weather the storms of serendipity
which permeated
the gulf coast with it’s anger
Gaea undulating
Rivers rising
Storm clouds gathering
People dying
Yet it was a beautiful sunlit day where I live
and I wonder sometimes how
long it will last
as I grieve for humanity yet again
Gulf Coast mourns 1 year after Katrina
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer – 38 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS – In the dark of dawn 65 miles south of this shattered city, several hundred people bowed their heads in silence, marking the moment a year ago when the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed overhead at 6:10 a.m. The tiny town of Buras was swept into the Gulf of Mexico, and, hours later, New Orleans’ crucial levees were overtopped, unleashing one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, killing over 1,800 people in all.
In pockmarked neighborhoods choked with weeds, in church pews and at City Hall, residents will planned to observe the one-year anniversary in vigils. They will remember the dead and ring the bell at City Hall to mark the moment one of the city’s flood walls breached and water engulfed the northern edges of the city.
In one of the Crescent City’s age-old traditions, a jazz funeral will wind through downtown streets, beginning with a somber dirge and ending with a song of joy.
Comments (17)
hey mike, how are you? excellent poem. did you take the photo? it makes me angry and sad to think about all those people who’ll never be able to go back ’cause they can’t afford to buy a new house. we’re doing this to ourselves ’cause no one’s taking global warming serious but try telling that to someone who’s lost everything in the floods. most of them were poor to begin with and they’ve got bigger problems in their lives than worrying about the environment. thanks for sharing your poem, it really got me thinking. take care, charlie :sunny:
Excellent poem.
Katrina inspired me to write a poem – which I seldom do, as I am a prose person. I posted it on my blog a while ago.
It was a good poem last year, and it’s standing the test of time, just like the spirit of New Orleans. I know these floods will happen again, these hurricanes, so I’m one of those people skeptical about rebuilding the city. I visited there once when I was in sixth grade. We went to an aquarium and an Audubon center. I was too young to enjoy the more adult flavors of the city, but what I saw and understood then were wonderous. I’m reflecting a little also on how tragedies of such magnitude have the power to bring humanity together. Americans poured out their hearts and pockets after this disaster, as we did for the tsunami on the other hemisphere a couple of Christmases ago. Thanks for the memories. Peace.
i think that’s the perfect way to remember!
I am in awe at the poet’s ability to arrange words to make them sing without a melody!!! You have a gift, Mike!
Hi Mike,
I saw your first video of that two part series and i just saw the second one. The video itself is good
, a porn haven 
…
I just feel bad for the women..I don’t know why..lol…let me know if you like my video although I shouldn’t call it avideo, it’s a slide show of pictures put he music with some other effects,
Hope you are well
Frank
It was a horrible disaster. Very nice poem.
we complain about the snow and the cold. the heat and the mugginess. the mosquitoes. gas prices. being overweight. having too much work. the expense of healthcare. property taxes. etc. all of those valid. until you put them next to something like this. i have made brief mention of my best friend who was in that terrible accident this year. paralyzed from the chest down. i cant complain anymore. i can be mildly unhappy, but i cant bitch. i recently burned my leg badly (on the muffler of a motorcycle) second and third degree about the size of a softball. in some places there is nerve damage. i can honestly say i did not feel the pain i was “supposed” to. i wonder if all the bad/sad things that happen start to make some of us impervious to physical and to a certain extent emotional pain. i do things i damn well know would cause some pain if they ever knew, but it helps me make it through my day. am i wrong? i just dont know anymore.
Oh my, lest you think I’m a stalker when you check your footprints… I was just looking back at past Internet Island topics to see if there were any from the past that I missed that I might like to play with ; )
Hello Mike
What a wonderful way of remembering the lost in New Orleans. Around here, where so many of the refugees landed, the feelings were stronger because you could see the anger and hurt firsthand and yet many were made more distant because of the inundation of pain on a daily basis. You would be hard pressed to find any person around here who does not know or work with someone misplaced by that hurricane. I too wonder who will be next. It is a little frightening. I don’t think most people realize how many lost their lives that day. It has become obscured in the day to day dealings with the survivors. It is so sad and your poem just brings back and makes one think about it again.
That is important.
Hugs
Kat
So much to respond to, as usual. I love that, Mike! Lady Jane was so good; I know I saw it on the History Channel or A&E or one of those. It makes sense that it was a real film. To have seen Zeppelin in their earliest days would have been amazing. I’m much less a fan after Houses of the Holy. Their first album eclipsed their fourth album as my favorite some time ago, but they’re wonderful anyway. I read “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test;” finished it maybe a year ago now. I really really enjoyed it – especially the bits of the story where The Greatful Dead were around and the bits about Hell’s Angels (another book I’ll have to read). The world has changed too much and I’m too afraid, but I’d love to drop some acid. With you would be fun, perhaps
Sad tragic moments in American’s history…….:(
I am amazed at the strength of the people in that community……:sunny:
Peace,
Joni
Thank you for sharing this poem with us … it’s wonderful.
“I stand, with many, awestruck by nature
And anger at man’s folly and naivete…”
Well said. Indeed … it was truly a powerful reminder of our inability to control things like we often believe we can … and also an ugly glimpse of our failures to care for fellow citizens — fellow humans … which caused great anger for me.
“Yet it was a beautiful sunlit day where I live
and I wonder sometimes how
long it will last
as I grieve for humanity yet again.”
And it’s amazing how quickly we returned to our own personal sunlit days (or our own problems that paled in comparison) … yet a year later many are still left uncared for. Again, thanks for sharing this poem!
After a busy month, I’m finally getting around to commenting back on comments from the first Featured Grownups topic of the month. Thanks so much for visiting and for your comment!
Mike, I posted some pictures tonite. I know you like photography.
This is an exquisite post.
RYC: You mentioned Internet Island; just to let you know, I applied for membership yesterday. I hope you will approve me! :sunny:
~Angie
:wave: Mr. Mike,
I couldn’t believe that it had been a year already since Katrina. Since they’re still talking about it as if it happened yesterday, I was surprised when I discovered the lapse of time. It makes one wonder where the time goes. I mean, did you realize that it’ll 5 years three weeks from this friday that the attack on the World Trade Centers happened?
I love your poem. I’ve never been able to take something like this event and turn into beautiful words and phrases that capture the inhumanity of it all even though it was all nature that did it. I like how I could picture it even though i never saw the pictures of the aftermath, I never read much about it, and never kept up with anything regarding it.
I hope all is well with you.
Peace out and take care.
Autumn
Hi, Mike. This is one of the best poems, I have read, that was written by you. I enjoyed it so much!!