In this issue
Edited by Deborah Fries
For
more information about
writing workshops offered by
the Cheltenham Township Adult School, contact:
Cheltenham Township Adult
School
1414 Panther Road
Wyncote, PA 19095
Phone: 215-887-1720
Gail B. Hicks
two poems
New Orleans
Bourbon street,
Ragtime beat,
Saints go marching
in,
Now riverboats lay
tattered,
The Delta, no
longer a friend.
Children stare,
With 3rd world
eyes,
Babies,
Much to weak to
cry,
Newborns,
Won’t see the light
of day,
Caught in currents,
Swept away.
A mother cries,
“Please save my
child”,
As she sinks into
the sand.
Hands her child to
a stranger,
To take to the
promised land.
New Orleans,
A sinking ship,
No captain at the
helm
Equality pushed off
the gang plank,
A Mardi Gras in
hell.
Catastrophe
Has rocked the
world,
Disturbing Bush’s
vacation,
Even allies offer
to help,
This whipped and
broken nation.
Katrina,
Our Tsunami,
Has left us
paralyzed,
A nation under
water,
Highlighting a
racial divide.
Institutional
racism,
Blew in with the
storm,
Some gave birth,
While others died,
Inside the
Superdome.
Physically,
emotionally
Spiritually
displaced,
We watched our
people bleeding,
From this national
disgrace.
Rescue—in slooooow
motion,
Were they not
Americans too?
Only valued at
campaign time
Their eyes brown,
instead of blue.
Deserted people,
Where were the
buses, cars, and trains?
To take the poor,
the frail, and old,
To the safety of
dry land.
Bodies float,
With Spanish moss,
The levees washed
away,
The Saints march
out,
Empty streets,
A nation left to
pay.
New Orleans
Gail Brown Hicks is the mother of two adult children and has been married 30 years. A current resident of the Cedarbrook section of Philadelphia, she has worked as a social worker for both youth and older adults since 1980. Her first career was as a journalist and public relation specialist in the Delaware Valley. Passions include dancing, political advocacy and American musical theater. Gail also takes on-line courses at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.