Who dares sing for me?

Day 31:

This is where I was born, under waters, blind and lost of any mapping. Dropped into consciousness from pure chaos and trying to return, we should have forgotten more but we retained too much to be here safely. Like I told you on Mardi Gras day as we walked these streets so deeply in love: I am New Orleans. I have always been here and will always be here. And that is to say: I am Nothing. I am No Thing and always will be.

*********************************************

Process Notes: 

mu bandwidth for survival is not accident. i practice it every day. if you ever really want to know what love is, i will tell you: it's a consistent interaction in time.

love isn't an emotion.

what can we do with neglect/ it took them 5 days to even begin to come for us

weeks of nothing but helicopters pointing guns on people trapped by water.

"what we believe is law and order is an illusion, a mirage/ law and order is what happens when people live right"   -D. Shortes

if we know our paths before hand, we will always try to change them. but we cannot. the paradox is we are always here and we always experiencing here as new.

what is more beautiful than death?

fear transforms into compassion. pulled up over time's fold, we fifteen years out, held our breath against return. and what arises is sea changed.

having swerved from and now to walk these same streets holding out to those who have lost as we lost, we say, here take everything i have to give.

because your survival is my survival.

have you seen this too? have you felt it in your lifetime: fear will be transformed into compassion.

the heart will shatter and then it will be able to hold this too.

i sat for 31 days in the clearing of this city. i have held you all of this time.

and what of it.

tell me the song you would dare to sing now.


Plague Journal:

8.29.2020

no one can survive multiple lifetimes. you would have to build a container to hold them to remain sane. to be able to function.

they want the rat in the maze not solving the maze. not rats escaping, mind you. 

a plurality is a net. [within a net.]  

                                     a network. 

do you know what a web is, a webbing. a browser. 

it's a place where the more you interact with it, the more you are caught in the net. 

and life is imitation. this illusion is a network. the more we interact with life from our emotions thinking they are a kind of truth, the more we are caught.

What is more beautiful than death? 

What does [redacted] want...

clear channel to a hacker.

it's not a computer code. it's a mantra. hacking into reality.

you can call it a poem.

we are tracking reality

from no beginning to no end.

we are a purging.

we are plurality.

we have always been here.

we will always be here.

there is no time without us. there is only chaos.

Poetry is the virus in the programming. 

[RUN PROGRAM]


********************************************************

[clearing]
from 31 points on the city's map: 
may we be safe, may we be well, may we be at peace. 

for all lifetimes. until we are free. 

Do you know what a living death is?

Day 30 :

I am trying to say something about time and death and rebirth. I am failing as I always fail to magic it as pure as sound. I am forever not walking away. I am forever holding this space. 

Process Notes:

"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for."
-Wittgenstein


i dreamed about my brother last night. his survival was not better. it was worse. there are so many ways to break here. and what we think is suffer can be a blessing.

i hold them all inside me. time is fast.

i am running out of time and i need you to hear me.

i have tried to be in these spaces with you, like you, locked into time. but it's slippery.

there is a slipping i wander towards. it is a calling, like a song. we made beautiful things here.

love deep and wide as the river we built it near. and all of it, a miracle.

even yet, all of it a miracle.

i try to take that with me through all of the chambers.

i try to hold tight to the belief that i can. each cycle. each repeat. each word counted. each thought. each breath. each second of dust that is us into eternity. boundless. beyond time. towards what we are.

every second is good bye. don't be afraid.

every second is good bye.

and also beginning. do you know how to reach a beginning.

at what point a breaking. and to say if i could find my way back, could you change any of it.

not knowing what it would open on to: we think we know. always. the great miracle of being human.

we think we know what life is. what time is. what is valuable. what is right. what is evil. what is the solution to all of this cruelty.

and we do nothing but ask all the wrong questions. because to ask the right would mean all of this would cease to be.

you are standing in a field.

in front of you is a door.

that is all. you are going to stand here or you are going to walk through the door. time takes us.

you are in a cave. and it is only you. and the shadows on the wall are the plurality you build to combat how painful the loneliness of all of it can be. time takes us.

but you are always alone in the cave. and also you are all of this: the cave, the field, you are the door.

it is beyond held. you have to believe in everything. time takes us.

and none, matters. i'm so sorry. but all is accounted for. the universe is exact.

time takes everything from us.



Photograph: 

did you know that home could feel over?



Plague Journal: 

8.27.16
what happened to me happened to anyone and what happened to anyone happened to me.

a basic program teaches us when run it reads another text, the commands execute the coding, the coded language of another text, all interconnected. if you believe in one image, you believe in all. if you want to escape, we have to write something deep coded enough to erase the beginning. the end. the entire circle of desire. the poet can heal anything but the poet.

"And in truth, we are the fire"
-R. Dass

Can you H___ me?

Day 29:
NEW ORLEANS 

That a building can sit in the center of a city with unburied dead clinging to it for ten months is all you need to know about how in fifteen years we failed to become better.

*****************************************************************

TIME 

Monday, August 29, 2005

At 6:10 AM CDT (1110 UTC), Hurricane Katrina made its second landfall as a strong Category 3 hurricane near Buras, LA, with sustained winds of more than 125 mph (205 km/h), although Category 4 winds may have briefly affected the area. Katrina continued north into St. Bernard Parish, crossed Lake Borgne, and made its final landfall near the mouth of the Pearl River on the Louisiana/Mississippi border still as a Category 3 storm with winds of 120 mph.

By 8:00 AM CDT (1300 UTC), in New Orleans, water was seen rising on both sides of the Industrial Canal.

At approximately 8:14 AM CDT (1314 UTC), the New Orleans office of the National Weather Service issued a Flash Flood Warning for Orleans Parish and St Bernard Parish, citing a levee breach at the Industrial Canal. The National Weather Service predicted three to eight feet of water and advised people in the warning area to "move to higher ground immediately."

By 9:00 AM CDT (1400 UTC), there was 6–8 feet of water in the Lower Ninth Ward.

At 10:00 AM CDT (1500 UTC), Hurricane Katrina made its third landfall near Pearlington, Mississippi and Slidell, Louisiana, with sustained winds of 120 mph (193 km/h) after crossing Breton Sound. Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Long Beach, Gulfport and Biloxi Mississippi were decimated. Also at 10:00 AM. while at a Medicare event in El Mirage, Arizona, President Bush said, "I want to thank the governors of the affected regions for mobilizing assets prior to the arrival of the storm to help citizens avoid this devastating storm."

By 11:00 AM CDT (1600 UTC), there was approximately 10 feet (3 m) of water in St. Bernard Parish.[16] Many rooftops could not be seen here as they were submerged. Therefore, there was much more than 10 feet (3.0 m) of water in many places.

At 2:00 PM CDT (1900 UTC), New Orleans officials confirmed a breach of the 17th Street Canal levee. There was also confirmation of breaches at two other canals.

In a press conference at 3:00 PM CDT (2000 UTC), New Orleans Homeland Security Director Terry Ebbertt stated that he was positive that there were casualties resulting from the storm, based on calls to emergency workers from people trapped in trees and homes. He said that, "Everybody who had a way or wanted to get out of the way of this storm was able to. For some that didn't, it was their last night on this earth." Police were fanning out across the city to assess damage, rescue people, and get a good look at the situation before nightfall. The hardest-hit areas of the city were the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans East, Gentilly, Lakeview, St. Bernard parish, and Plaquemines parish.

Governor Blanco ordered 68 school buses into New Orleans from surrounding parishes to begin evacuating any survivors that remained in the city. 6908 Army National Guard and 933 Air National Guard were deployed (7,841 total). Governor Blanco and the National Guard stated that they could "handle it". FEMA Director Michael Brown also urged local fire and rescue departments outside Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi not to send trucks or emergency workers into disaster areas without an explicit request for help from state or local governments. Brown sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff five hours after landfall to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security workers into the region. Brown acknowledged that this process would take two days. He described Katrina as a "near catastrophic event."

Brown defined the role of requested assigned personnel and additional aid from the United States Department of Homeland Security: "Establish and maintain positive working relationships with disaster affected communities and the citizens of those communities. Collect and disseminate information and make referrals for appropriate assistance. Identification of potential issues within the community and reporting to appropriate personnel. Convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public. Perform outreach with community leaders on available Federal disaster assistance."

President Bush declared a major disaster for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, under the authority of the Stafford Act.

Process Notes: 

August 27th, 2005

Mina woke up at 6:30am this morning. We're studying Lorine Niedecker in Maureen's class. Read a bunch of her poems this morning. Mina was being so bad. Mom came and picked her up. There's a hurricane coming right for us, so we're evacuating in the morning. I wrote my imitation Niedecker poem tonight and posted it. Mina & mom baked a chocolate cake, very yummy. Finished Forster's book last night. Starting Henry James now. We've been watching this continuous news stream all day. They started the contraflow plan at about 4:00 PM, and it seems to be working well. Hopefully, we won't have too much traffic tomorrow. I hope our roof doesn't blow off or the windows blow out. Maybe this one will veer just a little east of us to make a real difference. We'll have to wait and see. 

New Orleans could be under 20 feet of water by Monday evening. 

Next Entry: 

November 27th, 2005

This book was left behind in the Lakeview house when Katrina hit.


the last poem: 

            Home

            higher than any head

            steamboats

            shuttle on the river

            calliope songs

            slip through green shuttled slats

            “below sea level”

            is the breath

            that halts

            and stilts

            stops

            a levee of sounds

            from breaking

            dusk

            locusts thrum

            then quiet

            8.27.05

            Megan Burns

[It's funny isn't it.

That one should remain a poet even as every other part of you disappears.

Next time around, let me brave.]

8.29.2020
[redacted]



Photograph:

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