Goodnight Sweet Blues - New Orleans

[kerrynp5]

Goodnight Sweet Blues

A blue note hovers in the hazy smoke over New Orleans
Echoing above this devastated city
That was the “Birth of the Blues”

I have heard it said that you must know deep sadness
To be able to sing the blues, that the heart must weep
Or the feelings won’t come through

I have heard lots of blues in “The Big Easy”
But now the music is sung by those who never knew
That there was such a song in their heart

A lone dark streetlamp stands somewhere in the French Quarter
Recalling the sounds of wild music in the streets
Of Mardi-Gras and old men laughing out loud

Recalling the mighty howls of the spirits
That hovered in the town and lived within the aging walls
Remembering the songs of the “Greats” that echoed there

“Give me a pig foot and a bottle of beer…”
“My mamma dun told me, when I was in knee pants…”
“Nobody knows you, when you’re down and out….”

I can still recall the wild riffs of Dixieland Jazz
And the children dancing in the streets
Trumpets and Saxophones screaming through the foggy mist

A plate of red beans and rice piled high beside a crawfish or two
That was food for the soul and inspiration to make music
Played to the painted-faced tourists for some pocket change and a smile

What will become of her, our sweet New Orleans?
How do you rebuild an atmosphere, replace a thousand spirits
How do you paint the streets with the footsteps that once walked there

I hear a dirge played by a thousand cornets and trombones
The slow and sad tinkling of piano keys sighing a last mournful note
Goodnight New Orleans; our dreams are sweetened by having known you

[theirishguard]

Hey Kerry, Well writen! Yes it's a blues kinda day in the big easy. It will be back   maybe different    but it will be back.
Tom

[kerrynp5]

One of the two N.O.P.D. officers who killed himself, did so after finding his entire family dead in his house after the storm.We're going to have to fix alot more than just building!

Kerry

[R9SCarry]

kerry - I have to say, re that LEO - in such circumstances, finding all your family dead must very likely make the prospect of continuing life pretty pointless.

I doubt many of has ever felt the utter depths of despair so many down there have this last week.

[theirishguard]

I sure feel so sorry for all the police officers in New Orleans. How can they handle everything that has happened.
Tom

[Richard S]

Kerry:

Your poem is very moving.

The current tragedy inflicted by Hurricane Katrina upon the residents of New Orleans, Biloxi, and other communities of the Gulf coast brings to mind this passage by John Donne in his Meditation 17 from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions written in 1624:

"...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.  If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were.  Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. . . ."

_{Source: Norton Anthology of English Literature. Fifth edition. W.W.Norton, 1962. Vol.1., 1107.}

The bell tolls for all of us today.

[Billmack]

Kerry,

What a sweet & wonderful poem.

With your permission, I’d like to share it with some of the folks I meet in that area.

Regards,

Bill

[kerrynp5]

Plesae do.     Thank You