New Orleans

To begin what I hope will be a busy and creative 2006, I am offering my recently completed long poem: “New Orleans”. Please feel free to comment on the poem - I want to know what people think about it.

"New Orleans" was intended to be read as one long work because it has consistent themes, characters and images running throughout all of its eight sections. However, I realize that this is a lot to ask of any reader, so I have posted it in such a way that each section of the poem can be read individually.

About "New Orleans":
The major influence on the style of this poem is the style adopted by political blog writers who weave direct quotations and links to other sources into their arguments as a way of reinforcing the veracity of their information. I was influenced by this style because I followed the events of Katrina and its aftermath primarily by reading these writers - the best of whom now represent the only reliable way to get facts and background information that are otherwise ignored or buried by the increasingly irrelevant mainstream media. I still claim full poetic license (still available to poets as far as I know), but I have attempted to support certain facts and events in this same style by providing notes at the end of each section of the poem.

The unifying theme for this poem was wholly influenced by the book “The White Goddess” by Robert Graves. Written in 1948, this book decodes the language and symbols of myths and religions in order to trace the one “true” theme of all poetry. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in these subjects.

Of course Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster, and as such, can not be “blamed” on any particular person or group of people. However, the President and his party wield such a great influence over government policy that their philosophies greatly affect what occurs in such a disaster. For instance, when it is the strong opinion of people in power that everyone, no matter how economically or physically disadvantaged, should simply have the strength and will to survive with very limited government help, then, obviously, this will greatly affect the disaster response from the government. Also, when the overriding philosophy of our government is that we are the children of a strong father God who gave us the earth and everything in it to use as we see fit because we are the first of things, then, this affects government policy towards the natural environment and all forms of life within it.

I would like to dedicate this poem to my father William Pratt whose initial reading and comments about the poem gave me the confidence to post it.

New Orleans
by Thomas Pratt

I. Behind the Razor Wire

II. To You These Children Sing

III. Billy the Kid Dreams of America

IV. Jazz Funeral

V. The Marsh of Shades

VI. The Culture of Life

VII. The Great Eye

VIII. Black Snake’s Prayer

I. Behind the Razor Wire

Behind the razor wire,
Backhoes plow a deep and muddy furrow.
Secrets are being sown in the earth and covered over with silence.

Nervous soldiers swear and shift their guns.
At curfew in the desolate street
A wheelchair sits abandoned as it has been for days,
Its sad contents draped with a blanket.

Above it,
The face of a blue dog appears,
Floating forward, yellow eyes, begging:

“Help me! I am your mother’s spirit
“This gentle bank beneath the willow was my home
“In the dead of the year you brought me food

“There was a time you prayed here.

“Now that willow is upended
“Its roots torn and scattered on the wind,
“And the river is a waste of oily fire,

“Now your only prayer is to the Strong Father.”

The young soldier raised his weapon toward the ghost,
The tattoo of a black snake glistened with sweat on his huge bicep
His entire body was rigid, his eyes staring

“Don’t you remember your mother?”
“When I was a young girl, old John came to get me from school.
“He said: ‘Miss Flo Dee da flood’s a comin’ ‘s time to go!
“And he put me in a canoe and paddled us far away, to an island in a river.”

“Don’t you remember?”
“When you were young, you carved a crescent moon for me
“You made a spiral out of silver.
“In the land at the back of the North Wind there is a place for you,
“We could go there now and you would be forever at peace.”

The black snake twitched,
And shots boomed out across the dark, filthy waters.
Blue vapor snarled and curled in the dead branches of a sycamore tree
And the full, yellow moon brought the baying of stranded dogs.

Carefully, the soldier pulled back the blanket with the muzzle of his gun

There was no body beneath it.

---

Notes:

"razor wire"
Large parts of the disaster area were blocked off with razor wire.

"secrets are being sown..."
Kenyon International is a firm accused of hiding bodies in Iraq who were given a no bid contract to operate in the disaster area. Also, another firm that does a lot of contract work in Iraq, the Blackwater mercenaries were hired to provide “security” in New Orleans.

"blue dog"
The Blue Dog refers to the character that inspired the paintings of George Rodrigue. The Blue Dog is based on the loup-garu a werewolf or ghost dog of the bayou in Cajun legend.

"A wheelchair sits abandoned..."
The body in the abandoned wheelchair is partially a reference to Ethel Mayo Freeman who became an iconic symbol of the tragedy.

"Miss Flo Dee"
My grandmother who was rescued from a hurricane and flood near Lake Ponchartrain, Louisiana around 1915.

“…land at the back of the North Wind”
According to Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess this was a phrase used by Pindar to locate the land of the Hyperboreans and is also a Gaelic synonym for the Land of Death. The White Goddess in one of her manifestations has a “spiral” castle in this land that was usually situated on an island in a river.

II. To You These Children Sing

The golden barge of Le Dauphin,
Full of wine soaked voices and graceful music,
Floated gently past the Île de Fou.
Revelers, laughing gaily in powdered wigs, clambered onto the deck,
As the jeweled ship glided past the fetid prison.
Ignoring the cries of the prisoners, left in cells to drown as the guards fled,
Ignoring the sound of the muddy waves lapping,
Ignoring the song of the mad ones singing:

Il y a maladie dans le Roi,
Il y a maladie dans le terre et sur l’eaux ¹

A crowd of dehydrated, starving people,
Moved forward slowly across the bridge
The skin on their faces rippling
From the wind whipped by the blades of a chopper,

“Go back!” screamed a red-faced man “You people ain’t comin’ in here!”

Struggling backward, guns were fired above their heads,
A man and a woman, clutching together, fell to the pavement,
Unable to move, they were trampled by the frightened crowd.

At the feet of a policeman, lay the dead lovers, tangled together,
Twins born too soon, washed up by a blood tide and left stranded on this miserable shore.

“te chantent ces enfants”
“Change nos lots, crible les fléaux” ²

---

Notes:

"Le Dauphin"
Le Dauphin is a title that referred to the heir apparent to the throne of France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties.

"Isle de Fou"
Island of the Mad. I made this place up, as far as I know it doesn’t exist.

"prisoners, left in cells to drown as the guards fled"
Prisoners from the Orleans Parish prison were left locked in their cells to drown as the prison guards fled. Here's the story.

¹ “There is sickness in the King; there is sickness in the land and upon the waters”
Tom Pratt

"A crowd...moved...across the bridge"
The confrontation on the bridge refers to the Mayor of Gretna who had his police block a major evacuation route from New Orleans in order to keep thousands of evacuees out of his town. Warning shots were fired over the heads of the crowd but no one was killed: “Two Americas One Bridge”

"At the feet of a policeman, lay the dead lovers..."
The young couple dying by being trampled to death on the bridge are fictional. They are the characters that appear again as the Angels Cassiel and Anahita in Part III and they are the ones being buried in the Jazz Funeral of Part IV.

² “To you these children sing, change our lots, confound the plagues”
Rimbaud – “A Une Raison (To A Reason)” from Illuminations p.39

III. Billy the Kid Dreams of America

Billy the Kid fell to his knees before two angels of alabaster marble
In the ancient graveyard.
The rainbow colored feathers of a head dress,
Perched atop his long, ragged hair,
His bright but fragmented thoughts swirled in a pool of LSD madness,
He cried out in desperation:

“Captain America man, where the fuck are you man?”

While the distant light of a strangled sun cast a pale aura,
On the tomb before him, he read the inscription:

Anahita and Cassiel
- May Our Silent Tears Bring Forth Life Again From the Earth

Rocking back and forth with his eyes closed tightly,
Billy’s prophetic dream unfolded within him…

In the morning, in the mist, Evangeline went looking for cold spring flowers,
‘Till laughing she lay down by a stream.
In the morning, in the mist, she has been gone for hours,
‘Till crying she woke from her innocent dream

Out of a fissure in the sodden land came
Pale, equine Pluto all steaming hoof and wild matted hair,
A sharp, bony horn pointing rigid from his head
“You bright crescent will be my bride forever,
“In the darkest heart of the earth!”

Frantic voices, far away, called for Evangeline
And the rage of her mother when she learned her daughter’s fate,
Flooded the fields with tears so great,
That the land bore no food for years.

Evangeline is lost forever! All of the light is gone from the world!

A column of soldiers in the forest land,
Hunt the natives that hide their slaves,
The golden flower of the Dauphin,
Demand the return of His commodities,
And all evidence hidden in watery graves,

One flash of a musket and she was dead,
Her lover, Tchapitoulis, dragged away in chains.

The reflection of the African sun,
A dim and bloody fire in the eyes of a man,
With a body made of carved ebony,
Steel shackles held his legs and tightened around his bulging neck,
The mechanical, sneering voice of the Auctioneer said:
’What am I bid for this strong buck?’
Two women, sat on the porch of the Senator’s house twisting their white
Parasols and watching the marketplace

Said the younger woman:
“It does seem cruel Barbara”
Said the white haired one to the younger (chuckling slightly):
“Nonsense Corinna! This is working very well for them” ³

A rabid, snarling dog with white teeth barred,
Lunged at the knee-socked calf of a schoolgirl,
A crowd was sneering and spitting venom,
White hooded men feeling power in their violence,
Tied a rope to a scorched and dying ash tree.

All things tender were torn and wasted.
Two bodies lay on fire by the side of a road,
A truck squealing away, the men inside laughing

In a shack by the levee,
An old man huddled with fear.
The boards of his roof were cracking and buckling,
Wind and rain flayed the very skin from the earth.
In a corner of the room, a black snake was moaning:
“Life, I believe in life.”

Billy’s dream emptied from his head,
He’d seen his lover and his mother dead,
And his hero lost in a flash of light,
Curling up like a child he shuddered and cried,
Wanting desperately to be reborn.

---

Notes:

"Billy the Kid"
Billy and Captain America are the main characters in the movie “Easy Rider”. In one scene in the movie they take LSD in the New Orleans graveyard and at the end of the movie they are shot by rednecks and are left by the side of the road for dead with their motorcycles on fire.

"Anahita"
High ranking female angel in Zoroastrianism “immaculate one, genius of fertilizing water, and of the fruitfulness of the earth”
“A Dictionary of Angels” p.17

"Cassiel"
“Angel of Solitude and Tears”
“A Dictionary of Angels” p.82

"Evangeline"
Evangeline The famous Cajun legend that was the basis of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem. In this poem Evangeline is another name for Persephone, the daughter of Demeter from Greek Mythology.

"Tchapitoulis"
I was inspired by the music of a group called “Wild Tchapitoulis” to include this character. The group is actually the Neville Brothers but they record this more traditional music using this persona. I believe that the name refers to a Native American chief from the area. This section also describes how the Native Americans gave refuge to escaped slaves and intermarried with them.

"On the porch of the Senators house..."
President Bush on CNN September 2, 2005 :
"We got a lot of rebuilding to do.... the good news is and it's hard for some to see it now but out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic gulf coast... out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- the guy lost his entire house -- there's going to be fantastic house. I look forward to sitting on the porch. Out of New Orleans is going to come that great city again."

³ "Corinna"
Laura Bush (the President’s wife) referred twice publicly to Hurricane Katrina as “Hurricane Corinna”

³ "...This is working very well for them"
Barbara Bush (the President’s mother) upon seeing the flood survivors in the Houston Astrodome: “…And so many of the people in the area here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, “so this—this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”
Barbara Bush - As quoted by the American Public Media’s Marketplace program.

“a black snake was moaning...”
This character, who appears throughout the poem, is inspired by the song “Black Snake Blues” by Clifton Chenier the famous New Orleans zydeco musician.

IV. Jazz Funeral

The setting Sun a dull disk in a pool of filthy clouds,
             Parasols twisted one way, and then back
The waxing Moon a broken crescent turned on its side spilling silver
            Trombones lifted upward and then downward
The Constellation of the God Child glowing faintly in the marsh colored sky
            Mourners stepping in unison forward and then backward

This was the rhythm their bodies made during love,
            Disjoining and then joining,
This was the rhythm of their dance, weaving their steps together,
            To the right and then the left,
This was their life’s ship, made from the reeds on the banks of the river,
This was their course in the swirling tempest

Singing and moaning
            With voices come wise from the deepest caverns of the earth,
Passing their breath together
            Through golden trumpets in preposterous song,

This was the child they left behind.

---

Notes:

“Constellation of the God Child”
I made this up, there is no constellation by this name as far as I know.

“...the child they left behind”
Refers to the child of the two lovers Anahita and Cassiel. It’s also a play on the name of President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” Education program.

V. The Marsh of Shades

Moving swiftly to the work they were born for,
Uniformed men pulled down a façade
Carefully packing away thin boards,
That read ‘Food’ ‘Water’ ‘Clothes’

As the last TV truck left,
A man in a suit shouted over the roar of a nearby chopper:

“Get that food and water back in the Hummer!”
“Get those lights packed up!”
“Go! Go! Blacksnake One needs this for a speech in twenty minutes.”

We walked across this marsh of shades beaten
down by the heavy rain, our feet pressing
on their emptiness that looked like human form ⁴

Weaving a pathway by the foul, black waters,
I beheld a glowing white light with a faint glint of gold,
So bright was it that my guide bade me cover my eyes, saying:
“Do not look directly upon this Angel with the golden horn
“He is Gabriel in black face.
“Child of gentle lovers, he was left in a reed cradle by the banks of the river.”

I said to my guide:
“Surely, an Angel does not belong in such a place!”
“Why does he choose to be here?”
“Everyone is so poor and so black...” ⁵

”I can guide you no farther than this“, said my weary Virgil.
“Look! He raises the golden trumpet to his lips to play the Judgment!”

---

Notes:

“Get that food and water back in the Hummer!”
“German TV ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time. The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.”

⁴ “We walked across this marsh of shades beaten
“Down by the heavy rain, our feet pressing
“on their emptiness that looked like human form”
Dante – The Inferno – Canto VI Lines 34-36 Translated by Mark Musa

“...my guide...my weary Virgil...”
The last part of this section begins with a direct quotation from The Inferno and the part after it is intended to be in the style of that poem. Thus the mentioning of “my guide” and “Virgil” because the “shade” or ghost of Virgil is Dante’s guide through The Inferno.

“Why does he choose to be here?”
There was much discussion in the media about why so many people (usually poor and African American people) “chose” not to leave the flood area.

⁵ “They are so poor and so black”
Wolf Blitzer of CNN describing the flood victims.

VI. The Culture of Life

With a low, ominous rumble, the motorcade arrived at twilight,
Mercenary soldiers quickly unloaded props for the miracle play.
Flood lights bathed the façade of an old church,
Until the cross on its very top seemed to hover in the air and glow

An excited producer surveyed the scene:
“Oh, it’s heated up. It’s going to print loud!” ⁶
“Cue Blacksnake One, ready, go!”

Caught in a surreal green light, jaw clenched and grinding, eyes shifting from side to side, words halted and stumbling:

“We must acknowledge…poverty” ⁷

Kept back behind barricades, a crowd of people strained towards the light,
But as soon as it began it was over.

The black metal fortress of his car disappeared down the street,
And all of the lights were turned off behind him as he left,

Huddled in darkness once again,
The weary crowd groaned and looked to the waning crescent moon
for tiny rations of light,
But that bone-thin hag of the fallow year
stirred her empty cauldron of despair.

Mounting the steps towards his airplane, he was now drenched in sweat.
Pausing briefly at the top,
he waved towards the dark, humid city
and moved quickly inside

Looking through the thick glass of his airplane window
to the flooded land far below,
Blacksnake One turned to his Mentor and blankly said:
           “Death…much of it…could have…sooner”

“Forget about it, it’s not your fault.
No one could have expected this,” soothed The Mentor,
“You believe in the culture of life.”

And the Black Snake slept peacefully in his giant airplane,
Curled up in a cradle of pale, sickly yellow, clouds

---

Notes:

⁶ “Oh, it’s heated up. It’s going to print loud!”>
“…Bobby DeServi and Scott Sforza were on hand as we drove up about 8 p.m. or so EDT handling last-minute details of the stagecraft. Bush will be lit with warm tungsten lighting, but the statue and cathedral will be illuminated with much brighter, brighter lights, along nothing like the candlepower that DeServi and Sforza used on Sept. 11, 2002, to light up the Statue of Liberty for Bush's speech in New York Harbor. Here's a quote from DeServi on the lit up cathedral: "Oh, it's heated up. It's going to print loud.”
- Elisabeth Bumiller NYT(From: Press.Releases@WhiteHouse.Gov POOL REPORT #4, 9/15/05)

⁷ “We must acknowledge…poverty”
President George Bush from a nationally televised speech in New Orleans on 9/15/05.

"...the lights were turned off behind him as he left"
“I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.”
- NBC anchor Brian Williams

“No one could have expected this”
"He defended the federal government's response so far to the growing crisis amid urgent pleas for help from stranded victims. He said the breach of the levees that led to the submerging of much of New Orleans had not been anticipated."
Reuters story that summarized the statement made by George Bush on Good Morning America September 1, 2005

"culture of life"
“I think it's important to promote a culture of life…”
George Bush from the third Presidential debate 10/13/04.
Official Transcript

VII. The Great Eye

Manic, impatient, nervous, fearful,
The Great Eye no longer stares.
It’s gaze that used to cast light into deep corners,
Now flitted with dizzying speed from one bright bauble to another.

But for that one moment, it had blinked unbelieving,
At the sight of a blanket pulled back,
Of a weakened body shivering and naked,
It had looked within itself and found a ghost.

The Mentor offered blame and smoke,
Marionettes were put back in their boxes,
Explanations were confused with lies and threats,
Soon, no one remembered that the Great Eye had ever blinked.
A hole was opened in the collective memory,
And the dead flowed into it.

---

Notes:

"The Mentor offered blame and smoke"
“The Mentor” aka Karl Rove - A purely political adviser, who controls the president’s media message, was made the New Orleans reconstruction czar:
"Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort." (New York Times, 9/15/05).

"A hole was opened in the collective memory..."
The Bush Administration’s attitude towards the public’s perception of them is best summed up by this quotation in an October 17, 2004, New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind. The quote is from an unnamed aide to George W. Bush:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

VIII. Black Snake’s Prayer

Oh, Strong Father who made this parched and dusty ranch,
Who caused the rich, dark dirt to burn and blanch,
Who willed the green trees, to be stripped and bent
Their seeds broken open and the life within them spent.

Grant me these acres of waste beneath your fiery sun,
Give me the power to keep them free with razor wire and gun,
Protect this hot and lifeless plain,
For those that have the Strength and Will to build it back again,

And for those that are too weak,
I pray you do not let them speak,
But drown them with your wind and rain.

---

Notes:

"...acres of waste beneath your fiery sun"
Refers to the Bush government's policy of refusing to acknowledge that there are man made causes of global warming.

"...drown them with your wind and rain."
The Republican “opportunity society” touted by President Bush is best summed up by this famous quote from Grover Norquist of Americans For Tax Reform:

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

DVDLaser.com

I've just added a link for my brother Doug's web site: DVDLaser.com.

Doug is the expert on past, present and future DVD releases. Through The DVD - LaserDisc Newsletter which he was published every month for the last 21 years, Doug has faithfully reviewed the artistic content and technical quality of thousands of DVD's and Laser Discs. He has been quoted in Newsweek, Time Magazine and writes a regular column for Rolling Stone.

So, check out his site and read some of his reviews - you may decide that the information is so essential that you will want to order his newsletter so you can get the latest word every month.

Musical Collaborations

Winding down from a very difficult week in which I lost a dear friend and brilliant musical collaborator: Rick Kocor. For a tribute to Rick please see my wife Carrie's blog http://www.carriepr.blogspot.com.

Watching the wonderful musical collaborations of Rachel Fuller, Mikey Cuthbert, Pete and Simon Townshend on their web broadcasts of "In The Attic" is one of the things that's keeping me going right now. Their interaction and positive feedback for one another reminds me of my collaborations with my dear friends Rusty Fallis, Dan Satterberg and Rick in what we like to call the Writer's Group. We all brought our songs to this collaboration and then tried to do whatever we could to help "realize" each other's songs. While artistic creation is primarily a private and personal enterprise, all writers need a good, nuturing environment for the next phase of creation: Showing your song to someone else and hoping for approval. This is really where a "Writers Group" aids the creative process.

Soon, I hope to post some of my poetry and songs and make this blog more interesting. But, in the meantime, as Mikey likes to say "Give us a shout" and let me know who's out there. The creative process of blog writing needs approval too!

First Entry

This is a placeholder entry for what I hope will be a world shattering blog!