The sunny side of the street is gone, perhaps forever
They no longer pass by saying how do you do
The blues have lost their shades downtown
As New Orleans becomes the Baghdad, the Bosnia, the Beirut of Black America
Katrina, a Russian goddess just made for Wimbledon
Revealed her true identity skirting round Florida
Twisting, teasing, tantalising, attracting the eye
Of a storm of record Louisiana dimensions
It was a long time coming, but it arrived in style
The inevitable destructive swing of a mighty tail
Colliding with the personification of an underbelly
Spilling out the entrails of a society
Already below the poverty line, now literally drowning
In the excrement of neglect
The French had no right to quarter here
Levees were no match for the copied dykes
Two centuries of misguided hope
Masked the engineered alarm
As defences inferior to those of Amsterdam and Venice
Crumbled under forces Europe never knew
Gravity determined the inevitable, the lake flowed downhill
Just a metre or so sufficient
To submerge and drown cats and immobile people
Retrograde police movements, met by the influx of carpetbaggers and worse
Old folks and their care-homes deserted and rent asunder
Survival instincts clashing with opportunistic crime
The world’s only superpower
Now powerless before nature’s anger
How dare you ignore the warnings
How dare you sacrifice the world
To the avarice of the billionaire cabinet
How can you be born again
Whilst forsaking Kyoto’s umbilicus
Using it to strangle the underclass
Cheshire, England, September 2005
