What Does It Mean to Survive N'awlins?

By Rudolph Lewis

“It ain’t nice,” says Kalamu, in Nashville

surveying a military takeover, a mirror of

Fallujah, we may be no refugee, but it damn

sure got that feel, we that game for sometime

refugees from the Heart of Darkness, juju

masks, hips flying, dance trance—the funk?

Can we father our own humanity, if we would

only not make trouble? Old Captain Sam got

us. People wake up! N'awlins is dead, dead

dead. And there ain’t gonna be no revolution

no resurrection!? Wynton ain’t no Black Christ!

Nor Cos a good shepherd. How blind we were

we slept the sleep of zombies & they got

us with nuts & foreign beer & imported wines

missiles aimed, large and small, to fire up, in

Our genitalia in crosshairs, authorities—right

& left, on small things, tea parties & soirées

It dulls the wit. Listen, nitwits, we got DOA

here, a  cosmic tragedy—N’awlins is dead, dead . . .

*   *   *   *   *

Responses

Yes, this to me is far more progressive than rap song about Bush or anyone else jumping on the bandwagon. The Last Poets said it thirty years ago and again you as well as Kalamu have reiterated truths - this is what art must have timeless truths... Your poem is without a doubt one of the best you have penned. I congratulate you on your craft and insight and economy. I share and feel your pain.

There is far too much and so much to do...I am just shocked that American cities are still standing. What would it have been like in 1967?

I have said it before and will again - the radicals and the artists must continue to push on while community leaders draw up their own plans for reconstruction...I have no clue what will happen, but lord people are dead and New Orleans is gone. No mandate or law or interview or celebrity or fancy op-ed is gonna change that. Lord... Dennis (23 Sept)

I'm afraid you're right that N'awlins is dead.  God must truly be angry with that city—two hits in 30 days.  Can it recover?  Is it worth all that energy & resources?  Shock:  now all those evacuees have to vacate again.  Damn.  Life ain't fair. That's a powerful, right-on-target poem.  Miriam (23 sept)

direct hit rudy . . . eugene (23 Sept)

Yeah, Rudy, sounds like you right. Is Houston next? Or is this the beginning of sorrows? -- Marvin

posted 22 September