On a month they call September in the year 2005 .
The people of New Orleans did all they could to stay alive .
On their rooftops people sat when Katrina had been and gone .
Watching and waiting for help to come, trying to carry on .

I cannot swim and I fear the waters rising up on me .
The overflow has turned the city into a rolling sea .
New Orleans is washed away and people have no where to go .
A toxic sweep in waters deep has a deadly undertow .

I cannot swim I fear the water, but no one hears my screams ?
I'm sitting on a rooftop somewhere that once was New Orleans .
I will have to stay up here a while there's no place else to go .
All the alligators in the lakes are in the overflow .


I cannot swim, I fear the water may rise above my head,
and very soon I may be sleeping beneath a riverbed .
If only I had a boat the water wouldn't bother me,
because then I could float on the water creeping up on me .

I cannot swim but fear no more , because now I’m safe and dry .
As I'm sitting in a helicopter high up in the sky .
Down below I see nothing but water, thank God I’m alive,
I didn’t drowned in New Orleans September 2005 .

By Paul McCann