After the Hurricanes

                 (for the radical writers in New Orleans)

By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

Poverty is not devoid of its dignity,
Nor is the Ninth Ward a fractured mirror
For minor gods to behold factitious laughter.
Beware of aliens, of inside agitators, of vultures
Who would batten on grief and broken hearts,
Kidnap our cultures and dreams, wondrously aged,
Transport and auction them for abuse.
Against such tragedy within tragedy we stand
In solidarity for life, for liberty, for return to happiness.

Saints and soldiers creative
Be not blindly meditative,
Seeking at noon
An impossible drinking gourd.

Hope is not devoid of its deceit,
Nor immune to misleading into swamps.
Careful.  Don’t move left. Quicksand be there.
Don’t move right.  Gators will kiss you.
Learn from the fugitive enslaved.
Befriend moccasins.
Capture and coffle the cruel,
The arrogant, the mammon cold.
Send them on middle passages into the blues.

October 19, 2005

posted 21 October 2005