--> 

I’ve always loved the beautiful old city of New Orleans

Visiting friends here, and working here numerous times

But very sadly, the once ‘Big Easy’ is no longer the same

It’s no longer a place filled with love, and laughter sublime

Entire neighborhoods still stand silently abandoned and rotting

With no water or electrical power, so long after Katrina came

As I sadly wander these most desolate eerie neighborhood streets

I have to wonder if the once great New Orleans, will ever rise again

As I diligently search through mildew infested buildings and homes

Attempting to find starving dogs and cats, still tragically hiding there

I am truly saddened and sickened by the remnants of once happy lives

At each and every devastated home I now enter, I have to stop and stare

Once treasured family keepsakes, and photo albums, and life’s mementos

Now lie forlornly scattered about on muddied, mildewed floors and walls

Once friendly dogs and cats lurk silently in the dark shadows, like ghosts

Racing away in fear, from every human approaching down blackened halls

These so very callously forsaken creatures no longer trust any human being

The only way to help them now is to set out live-traps with some bits of food

Then to hide in the deep dark shadows myself, hoping that they take the bait

The heartbreak that I’ve felt here, has left me in a truly depressed, somber mood

I have witnessed far too much carnage and utter devastation here in this old city

And I will carry these painful images in my heart and soul, for the rest of my life

Yet, my feelings and emotions must be a fragment of those who once lived here

Who must now live forever, with these horrid images, filling their minds with strife

I came upon a gentleman courageously attempting to renovate his cherished old home

Having been born here in this place sixty-four years ago, here he truly yearns to remain

Yet, he very sadly realizes in his heart and soul that unless most of his neighbors return

City officials will soon bulldoze his entire neighborhood, utilizing ‘Eminent Domain’

One miserably cold and rainy afternoon, as I enter a dark devastated abandoned home

I find the skeletal remains of someone’s once cherished pet, peering up into my eyes

That’s the moment when all these forsaken, forgotten, ghosts of New Orleans appear

And that’s when I sit with them for hours in the rubble, and that’s when I begin to cry

Images of these many forlorn and forgotten ghosts will always remain,

Of the once extremely vibrant and very majestic city of New Orleans;

And now I wonder, how many places just like her, there will soon be,

Now, that once benign Mother Nature, has turned so viciously mean

And Please Visit The Website Listed Below;

This Could Happen In Your Neighborhood

©2007, Mr. Ed