Katrina Poem by B. V. Dahlen

That lovely name so vaguely Nordic,
and gently slipping off our tongue
is now a blasphemy of destruction,
death and turmoil.

She brutalized the coastal towns
and clubbed them to their knees,
like a Valkyrie upon a sodden steed,
and in her wake,
the pride and shame of our culture
dwelled in those turbid waters.

Alone and frantic they waited,
aided their colleagues,
sacked their cities,
and waited still longer,
on roof tops and tree limbs,
in shelters, on bridge ramps,
in dusky drowned alleys,
with unslaked thirst and hunger,
watching waxy corpses drift by.