New Ilium

A poem that uses Classical rhetoric and imagery to explore the post-Katrina devastation of New Orleans.

I

The awful fury of the gods alone
could shake the mighty citadel of Troy
and send its well-built walls — robust and sure,
which for so long provided welcome shade
to every Trojan, be they young or old,
and sheltered thus the strong and weak alike —
cascading to the ground, a wretched wreck.
I bid you — if you have the heart — to look,
and see the gods so ravenously march
with bloodshed in their shining, raging eyes.
As foxes in a helpless chicken coop,
so do the gods proceed to raze the land,
and lay it low, and rend great Troy dust,
who topples to the ground with lifeless limbs,
complexion pale and sickly as the blood
(a crimson river) pours from out her breast,
a thousand spears protruding from her form.
What horrors now befall majestic Troy! —
as men and gods lay forth their naked wrath,
and Mercy fled the city long ago.

And Mercy too abandoned New Orleans,
when — straining mightily — the levees burst
(and by whose hand I do not dare to say)
and sent the muddy water crashing forth.
The Lord was surely sightless at the time,
for who could bear to watch catastrophe
when one could end it all with but a wave?
A wave to end the waves, and yet the Lord
stood motionless behind His shining gates
as tempest through the city ran unchecked,
and ruins stood where just the prior year
parades had thundered down the streets — well-worn —
with blaring brass and colors seldom seen.
Ignored by all, the city gasps for breath
and struggles just to keep her head above
the filthy water, rising evermore.
Can no one hear the cries of New Orleans?
Can no one hear her empty belly growl,
nor hear her feeble splashing as she flails,
nor see her fighting for her very life?

Laocoon, you tried to warn them all:
“I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts,”
and maybe, nestled deep within their horse,
the Greeks began to sweat when first you spoke,
and feared your words would spur the Trojan crowd,
and that their trickery would be revealed.
Odysseus conceived the treachery —
Odysseus, most clever in his lies —
and furtively the wooden trap was built:
a weapon deadlier than any spear.
“We will take care of you,” they lied aloud —
a foolish claim, a deadly one as well.
How many stayed, their faith in levee walls?
Just as Achaeans flooded Trojan streets
once Troy, unready, fell for their deceit,
so did the waters flood through New Orleans.
Does sleep come easy for those architects
whose treacherous construction doomed the place,
who ought to be regarded evermore
as cruel as good Laertes’ cunning son?

A serpent spoke to Adam and to Eve,
and wove deceptions with its wicked tongue,
and doomed humanity to live in sin.
And serpents crawled from out the livid sea
to feast upon Laocoon’s two sons,
and then to feast upon the man, in turn,
and doomed the Trojans, who misplaced their trust,
and gave it to the gods instead of kin.
And so it is that serpents oft are used
by gods to bring deceit and wickedness
into the realm of man. And so the Lord
put down the crawling beast into the fields
of spotless Eden — otherwise pristine —
to taint the garden with duplicity.
What serpent was the doom of New Orleans?
In Eden there was one, in Troy were two,
how many doomed New Orleans thus to drown?
From New Eden, men watch the waters rise,
and — forked tongues hissing in their ears — they say:
“Mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.”

II

Aeneas, pious, how I pity you,
whom twofold nightmares tore from peaceful sleep:
first bleeding Hector, champion of Troy, —
who roused you on that fateful, bloody night, —
then (once you’d sprung, awakened, from your bed)
you saw the horrid sight of noble Troy
now set ablaze and butchered ‘fore your eyes.
O Aphrodite, ficklest of gods,
you could not bear to leave your greatest son
to suffer in the smoldering of Troy;
you urged Aeneas — fated sire of Rome —
to flee the site, and never to return.
And so he fled, Anchises on his back —
who once did carry proudly Love herself,
to bed, and lay with her — in desperate flight,
Creusa and Ascanius in tow.
And so the family fled, but — sad to say —
they did not escape without tragedy:
Creusa lies in Troy forevermore,
how tragic that she did not make it out.

Just as Aeneas made his swift escape,
the people of New Orleans fled as well,
with all that they can bear upon their backs.
And all who can afford to leave have left,
and all who can’t are left to wretched Fate.
Some leave, and never will return again —
why would they? After all is said and done,
what all they leave behind will be destroyed,
all ruined by the vicious wind and rain.
Aeneas and his men made their escape,
but Hera, furious as oft she is,
sent vicious squalls to tear their ships apart.
How many lives does dread Katrina claim?
The streets reverb with echoed agony:
with breaking glass, the barking of the dogs,
and blaring sirens screaming in the night.
The lucky ones have fled, and left the rest
to suffer in their stead, and waste away.
The storm has left no solace from the waves;
a flood, a flood! — yet not a drop to drink.

The streets of Troy and New Orleans are wet.
The former are stained crimson by the blood
that pours from out the bodies littering
the tidy rows that run through crumbling Troy.
A tempest has submerged the latter streets
and sordid rivers carry countless dead,
who float — pale, bloated, rancid — on the waves.
And on they drift, where people used to walk,
where children played, where once performers stood
and — faces painted with a practiced smile —
called out for all those bustling crowds to watch.
Now there is only silence in the streets,
and who can bear to look upon the scene?
None but the vultures, circling overhead.
Like horseflies buzzing all around a corpse,
they glut themselves on ruin and decay,
and feast as others starve. Now, hear the blades
of helicopters whirring overhead —
they’re vultures too — they watch with widened eyes
as wretched New Orleans cries out in vain.

The Lord looked down on Noah mercif’lly
and spared him from the ruin of the flood.
If only New Orleans He gave such grace!
If only He had spared from rain and gale
the city once renowned for revelry,
which lies in pieces, torn to broken bits.
There is no Ark to spare New Orleans now;
the city’s left to drown by God and man.
The roofs — like lilypads atop a pond,
which house all manner of terrestr’al beasts
and keep them safe from inky depths below —
are all that’s left of solace to be found,
and they alone are dry among the waves.
And those who have survived the horrid storm
now lie there starving in the swelt’ring heat.
And some are trapped in what was once their home,
and as they feel the water slowly rise,
and see their ceilings creeping closer still,
they can but pray that someone soon will come,
and spare them from an agonizing death.

III

Let’s pay unto the gods their due respect,
who brought catastrophe to mighty Troy
and toppled walls once deemed impregnable,
so forceful and ferocious was their will.
How could a mortal stand against these gods?
How could a city — mighty though it was —
defend itself when all the sky descends
and marks it for destruction certainly?
Who sallies forth? Who of the gods takes part?
Dread Pallas slays with graceful dignity —
so noble even in her savagery —
Poseidon shakes the sea, and Zeus the sky,
and Hera revels, Hermes revels too,
Hephaestus, lame although he is, sends flames
which tear unburdened through the Trojan streets.
And Thetis grieves in Hades’ dark domain;
she looks about a throng of endless dead
and hopes to see her son among the crowd.
Catullus sang — with reverence and awe — :
“Quis his deis, comparier ausit?”

The Lord as well has toppled many walls,
and sent His wrath to tear cities apart.
Ask Jericho, whose walls came tumbling down
as mighty Joshua marched all around.
And all were slaughtered; every man and beast
— except for Rahab — died to sate the Lord.
And He sent mighty Egypt to her knees
with horrors that I shall recount for you:
He first turned all the Nile to bubbling blood,
and from the depths came teeming hoards of frogs,
then lice — their number countless as the dust —
sprung from the air, then vicious beasts as well,
then all the livestock fell to wretched plague,
then fest’ring boils struck man and beast alike,
then from the sky came hail and wind and fire,
then locusts — swarms so thick they blocked the sun —
then darkness came for three unending nights,
and finally, He slew each eldest son.
And Moses sang — with reverence and awe — :
“Who is like unto thee among the gods?”

Dear Lord — Dread Lord — who quakes the world at will,
and thus leaves men to quake in fear and awe,
the Alpha and Omega, King of All,
at last — at long last — are you satisfied?
None doubt your power now, if e’er they did,
what Zeus did but with help you’ve done alone.
The God of gods, unmatched, unparalleled,
now all have seen your fury and your wrath.
But why, if you are gentle as you’ve said,
and merciful as you have claimed to be —
surely you are, for who could doubt the Lord? —
I ask you why you’ve brought such misery
into the world, both now and in past?
I ask you this, my palms turned towards the sky,
and for a while no answer comes to me.
But then you stir, and make your presence known,
and in response you split the sky in two,
and thundering from lofty pedestal
you say — much like great Ozymandias:
“Look on my work, ye Wretched, and despair!”

There is but silence in the sordid air.
The wailing of Catastrophe has stopped,
now all that’s left is quiet Misery.
New Orleans languishes in rubbled rot,
and Life and Death continue as they do,
and as they will forever, on and on.
Some have lost everything, some just their lives.
The heavy summer sky is still at last.
Two thousand dead, and still the water sits —
unending water, heavy with debris —
for days and weeks to simmer in the sun.
The city rests, skin peeled back by the wind,
lungs gurgling, its bones a broken heap.
There is a certain peace amidst it all:
a wretched peace, a grim serenity,
just as, when huddled ‘round a dying man,
when finally the ragged breathing ends,
a morbid calmness often fills the air.
Now all is silent, all except the birds.
One turns and says to no one: “Poo-tee-weet?”