ROCKPILE on the road / 11

Michael Rothenberg


KATRINA

Despite day after day of appearance
by President Bush aimed at undoing 

             talk about corpses

       Hurricane Katrina 
       blew through Hollywood, Florida

the political damage from
a poor response to Hurricane Katrina, 

            talk about toxic soup

                        Palm fronds

the White House has not been able 
to regain its footing,
 
            talk about mama drowning

       Cane splinters
        
already shaken by the war in Iraq 
and a death toll exceeding 1,880.
        
         talk about suicide 
       
Mango branches 
         on the lawn
        
The administration on Tuesday struggled 
to deflect calls for an accounting 
      
       talk about rotten stench 

       In New Orleans
       hungry mortality 

of who was responsible for a hurricane response 
that even Bush acknowledged was inadequate

        talk about nothing left

       Provolone, 
       mushroom, bacon omelet

Even as Katrina was bearing down 
on the Gulf Coast that Sunday night 

             talk about being lost

       A biscuit at Grandpa’s Diner

and early Monday, Aug. 28-29, 
and the national hurricane center was warning 

            talk about losing everything

       Skip dinner
       Shell a bowl of peanuts

of growing danger, the White House 
didn't alter the president's plans 

          talk about too much talk

       Wake late, check news
       New Orleans destroyed

to fly from his Texas ranch to the West 
to promote a new Medicare prescription drug benefit.

          talk about corpses

       Why aren't there 
       ten thousand rescue helicopters 
                   flying into New Orleans?

By the time Bush landed in Arizona that Monday, 
the storm was unleashing its fury 

              talk about toxic soup

       Why can’t an administration 
                              that says it can rebuild Iraq
       protect its own people?

on Louisiana and Mississippi. 
The president inserted into his speech

           talk about mama drowning 

       Don't answer

only a brief promise of prayers and federal help. 
He continued his schedule in California, 

          talk about suicide

       It’s a race, class issue
       “Boots or books” issue

and he didn't decide until the next day 
that he should return to Washington. 
    
talk about rotten stench
       
       Iraq issue, troops issue!
       Food or security issue?

But it took him another day to get there, 
as he flew back to Texas to spend another night 
        
       talk about nothing left

          “It’s human nature!”

at his home before leaving for the White House.
Once the president was in Washington, 

            talk about being lost

       Babies sheltered w/ cardboard salvaged 
       from wreckage of “policy”

the criticism only intensified. 
In a television interview, Bush said - mistakenly – 

            talk about losing everything

       Platitudes
 
that nobody anticipated 
the breach of the levees in a serious storm. 

            talk about too much talk

Factoids

Even Monday’s trip to the region was a redo,
hurriedly arranged by the White House. . .

            Father says, “A Thousand Points of Light”

       Son says, “The Armies of Compassion”

Bush raised eyebrows on his first trip 
by, among other things, picking Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. – 

            talk about mama drowning

       Even as we speak. . .

instead of the thousands of mostly poor 
and black storm victims – as an example of loss. 

       Bicycling medicines 
       from pharmacy to catastrophe

              That they would be refugees

“Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house— ” Bush said, 
“he’s lost his entire house—there’s going to be a fantastic house. 
And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.”
 
Bush gave FEMA chief Brown – the face for many 
of the inadequate federal response – 

             Aliens in their own country

       Because they’re poor, black, poor, white

a hearty endorsement. "Brownie, 
you're doing a heck of a job," Bush said. 

             talk about too much talk

       “Making their own situations 
       in a dog eat dog world”

Later in Biloxi, Miss., 
Bush tried to comfort two stunned women 

             talk about too much talk

       “Refugees”

wandering their neighborhood 
clutching Hefty bags,  looking in vain for something 

             talk about too much talk

       “Evacuees”

to salvage from the rubble of their home. 
Bush kept insisting they could find help 

             talk about too much talk

       “Flood victims”

at a Salvation Army center down the street, 
even after another bystander informed him 

          talk about too much talk

         talk about corpses

it had been destroyed. 
And at his last stop that day, 

          talk about too much talk

       “It’s time for Bush to go”

at the airport outside of New Orleans, 
Bush lauded the increasingly desperate city 
as a great town because he used to go there
and “enjoy myself—occasionally too much.”

         talk about too much talk

       whine, whine
       go away
       come again another day

         talk about corpses
 
       maybe ten thousand      corpses

         talk about too much talk

                  too much, too much

        I look outside
           Crows in the mango tree

 
                                August 28-September 16, 2005

Michael Rothenberg performs KATRINA
with Blodie and members of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band in New Orleans.

ROCKPILE on the road: bionotes, etc.

 
 
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